Historical approach to the lawyers’ duty of secrecy in the exercise of their profession

Abstract

There is not any roman legal source that leads us to conclude that the violation of professional secrecy has the status of a public offense. However professional indiscretion was not indifferent to the law as it is reflected in the texts. In the legal sources the praevaricatio is referred as an illicit act related to the violation of professional ethics of a lawyer from public law. In spite of that, the results provided by the exegesis of the texts suggest that Roman jurisprudence covered the need to protect any conduct of a lawyer which violates ethical and moral principles in his relationship with his client from a private perspective. Roman jurisprudence understood that lawyers’ liability for breaching their duties is not relevant to public law..