Meeting of the PASO Council

Meeting of the PASO Council

30.04.2021

On April 29, a meeting of the Council of the Chamber of Lawyers of the Samara Region took place.

It began with a discussion of the results of the X All-Russian Congress of Lawyers and the amendments to the Code of Professional Ethics of a Lawyer adopted there.

As part of the agenda, the applications of six lawyers to suspend and two to renew the status of a lawyer were satisfied. The status of seven lawyers was terminated on the basis of a personal statement. Two lawyers have applied to the Council to change their PASO membership to a bar association in another region.

Five lawyers were credited with professional development hours, including for teaching at the School of the Young Lawyer.

The lawyers notified the Council of the establishment of six and the liquidation of three lawyers' offices. Applications from twenty-eight lawyers to be included in the subsidized legal aid system were approved.

The Council unanimously decided to provide traditional material assistance to war veteran lawyers on the occasion of the Great Victory Day.

During the meeting of the Council, eight disciplinary proceedings were considered.

Two of them were terminated due to the absence of a disciplinary offense in the actions of the lawyer, one - due to the reconciliation of the participants. Remarks were announced to two lawyers, and warnings about termination of the status were issued to three.

One of the disciplinary proceedings was initiated due to the fact that the lawyer who provided assistance to the client from another city did not enter into an agreement on the provision of legal assistance. According to the lawyer, he was going to sign it when the principal arrives in Samara, but this did not happen. The fee was transferred by the principal to the lawyer's personal bank card and, as established by the Qualification Commission, was not subsequently credited to the current account of the lawyer's education. The client had complaints about the quality and volume of legal assistance provided. Although the lawyer presented the text of the agreement, the absence of the client's signature on the conclusion of the Qualification Commission made it null and void. It was not possible to determine the amount of work agreed by the parties. The lawyer was warned. Previously, the PASO Council has already explained that the formalization of relations with nonresident principals should take place by sending the parties to each other the signed text of the agreement by mail or express delivery. An alternative could be the exchange of scanned copies of agreements with signatures or the use of an electronic signature. The PASO Council has also repeatedly drawn the attention of lawyers to the inadmissibility of receiving remuneration on a personal bank card in connection with the strengthening of control over the financial transactions of lawyers by the Federal Tax Service and the tightening of requirements for proving their good faith. If the principal does not have the opportunity to transfer cash to be deposited into the cashier, it is possible to transfer it without much difficulty not to a lawyer's card, but to the current account of a lawyer's education. The only difference is that instead of a phone number, the client will have to manually enter the details of lawyer education into the bank's mobile application. In order to make non-cash transfers extremely simple for principals and to protect lawyers from problems with tax authorities, lawyers' associations are recommended to generate QR codes for transferring funds to their current accounts. Any person who has access to a personal account on the bank's website where the account is opened can create a QR code for an account of a board, bureau or cabinet.

On the basis of the statements of the principals, gratitude was announced to ten lawyers.

The council considered appeals from lawyers for clarifications.

One of them was connected with the problems arising during the meetings with the clients in the pre-trial detention center-1 in Samara. With the outbreak of the pandemic, the administration of the pre-trial detention center stopped the admission of lawyers to the investigation rooms. Due to the protection against coronavirus, communication between lawyers and principals takes place in a short-term meeting room, where there is no possibility of confidential communication. The lawyer and the client are separated by a partition and communicate via an internal phone, which is initially equipped with a recording device. The partition excludes the possibility of joint work with documents and even more familiarization with the materials of the criminal case. Extreme overcrowding, lack of proper working conditions, constant recording of negotiations with the client - in such conditions Samara lawyers have been working in SIZO-1 throughout the year. The Council recommended that lawyers respond adequately to the violation of the rights of principals and fundamentally defend them using the mechanisms provided for by law: file petitions for violation of the right to confidential communication with a defense lawyer, demand that investigators remove it, refusal to appeal in court. If the conditions of the pre-trial detention center do not allow communicating with the client and jointly getting acquainted with the case materials - to demand the provision of such an opportunity, transfer the client to the investigation department or otherwise ensure his procedural rights.

The Council decided to apply to the management of SIZO-1 with a request to consider the issue of holding meetings with the client in the investigation rooms in compliance with individual anti-epidemic security measures.

Another appeal of the lawyer to the Council contained numerous questions about the remuneration of the appointed lawyer. The answer to it is published on the PASO website.

At the end of the meeting, PASO President T. D. Butovchenko informed the Council about the preparations for the 21st regular (annual) conference of lawyers of the Samara region. Despite the fact that the conference will take place on May 27 and there is almost a whole month ahead, PASO is almost ready for its holding. There are no plans to change the amount of deductions for general needs of PASO within the framework of the conference.

PASO Press Center

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