The translation of the European Court of Human Rights Factsheet “Legal professional privilege” has been finalized with the support of the Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine”.

A summary of the cases on protection of legal professional privilege will provide an opportunity to get oriented quickly in the relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. It includes the following cases on:

• wide formulation court warrants to search a lawyer office;
• a role of professional bar associations in regard to protection of legal professional privilege when law enforcement bodies intervene in the secrecy of correspondence or conduct a search in offices;
• lack of a remedy of appeal against a search as a ground for violation of Article 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights (right to an effective remedy);
• lack of possibility to file a full appeal against the decision which allowed to conduct a search or execute seizure, as a ground for violation of Article 6 §1 of the European Convention of Human Rights (right to a fair trial);
• victim status of a legal entity (advocate firm) in case of a search in its office under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (right to respect for private and family life);
• interference by a representative of the professional bar association with a lawyer office: whether such action would be considered as interference by state authorities.

This document could be of interest to lawyers, as well as judges and law enforcement officials, as it provides up-to-date information on the European Court of Human Rights case-law on legal professional privilege.