CONFIDENTIALITY AS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITY OF THE ADVOCACY

In the article, the author investigated confidentiality as a principle of the organization and activity of the advocacy. The difference between confidentiality and attorney-client privilege was analyzed. The author concludes that confidentiality as a principle of the advocacy is a set of legal prescriptions that determine the mechanism for observing attorney-client privilege, protecting personal data and other types of information with limited access in the process of practicing law, as well as qualification, disciplinary and other types of proceedings in the system of advocate's self-government. Attention is drawn to the fact that, unlike many other principles of the advocacy, the principle of confidentiality applies to a wider range of subjects, including not only advocates, but also assistant advocates and interns of advocates, persons who have an employment relationship with a advocate, as well as persons in respect of whom the right to practice law has been terminated or suspended. Arguments were given in favor of applying the concept of limited protection of attorney-client privilege in Ukraine. The author justified the need to supplement article 22 of the Law of Ukraine “On advocacy and advocate's activity" with part eight of the following content: "An advocate does not bear disciplinary, administrative, civil and criminal responsibility for providing the central executive body implementing state policy in the field of crime prevention and counteraction with information that constitutes attorney-client privilege, in order to prevent the commission of a serious or particularly serious crime against the life and health of an individual”.