Couture's decalogue is a clear manifestation of the aspirations of advocacy. Advocacy must tend towards the highest and most noble ideals of Justice, and as a student of the Universidad Iberoamericana, those ideals are, for me, influenced by the Jesuit philosophy. In order to understand the values that bring light to the lawyer, first we must define the meaning of Law. Therefore, we offer the definition created by Doctor Miguel Villoro Toranzo:
As a rational system of social conduct rules, Law places the human being as its principle and ultimate goal, always, enlightened by Justice. The Lawyer is, therefore, an instrument by means of which the common individual gets to Justice. The advocate is the intermediary between the citizen and the State. Thus, the main duty of a Lawyer is to contribute in order to have Law exercised in a more just manner. The Lawyer is not, therefore, an isolated and independent part of the institutional legal system and the exercise of Law on behalf of the State, he is an integral part of it. But, this does not mean that the Lawyer is a mere servant of the State. Better yet, State (or Judges) and lawyers are servants of Law. (2) A person that chooses Law as a profession, doesn't only choose an honest way to make a living. He also picks a life style, establishing a proper identity, claiming a preferred road amongst others. The choice for Law must be a synthesis amongst values, ideals and personal reality. (3) Serving the Law must be a conviction for the person. One cannot act based on weak beliefs. Law is animated by ideals of justice and peace. If the person whom has chosen to be its servant does not believe in such ideals, he cannot be a honest servant of Justice. Thus, the Lawyer must defend rights and obligations, and accomplish the duties imposed on him by the law. But he is not bonded to the said defense and accomplishment by his profession, but by the simple nature of the human being. Reason, will and liberty, constitute, for man, an immense power: they are an honor and a risk. They are like this, reason and liberty, more properly, the spirit, the immediate foundation of the human person's dignity; without reason or liberty (again, more properly, without spirit), man would not be placed over the rest of the beings of creation and they would not be ordered to man, as to their natural end; the same cosmic laws that reign all beings, including instinct, would govern man equally, forcefully, fatally and there would not be any place for rules or laws. Therefore, it is evident that human reason and liberty have made the legal order necessary, and therefore, have made man the natural subject of that order. (4). As free rational beings, we may not escape the order established for us to live together. The lawyer should understand, however, that this order is not a chain to limit or impede consciousness (the spirit); it is more likely a vehicle in order to transport man to higher consciousness levels, more worthy of his freedom and reason. The State must guarantee the existence of that vehicle by means of creating decision, execution and prevention institutions in order to guarantee a state of legality. The bridge between the institutions and the common individual, the citizen, is the lawyer. Better yet, the professional is bounded (because it is his duty) to become a connection between the State and his environment, that he will have to defend or accuse, depending on the case. The only way he might know what side to take will be by knowing and living the principles that give life to the righteous attitudes of lawmen. (5) We have not yet emphasized the existing relationship between the legal and the moral rule. Inmanuel Kant says that the first is unilateral, interior, non-coercible and autonomous; while the second is bilateral, exterior, coercible and heteronomus. The need for the Science of Law to be independent from Moral, has made believe that Law is totally strange to any moral. The space between both is smaller than it seems. Law is focused on human cases, from a collective point of view and through governmental institutions; while Moral is focused on the same human cases, but from an individual point of view, through the person itself. What is real is that both have the same study case: the righteous human conduct. (6) Law and moral coexist and are related in an insoluble way because of their origin. Both are manifestations of the culture of a given society, immerse in a determined moment (time and space). As expressions of such culture, they should nurture each other and hardly may they be conceived separately. They are a manifestation of what a human group should be in a given time and place. Not withstanding what has been said, law and moral have boundaries, human law doesn't forbid all those vices of which the virtuous keep away, but only those considered most dangerous, those that the masses may avoid, and over all, those that are a danger to others, those that put human society at risk (7). This is coherent with the ends of law, those that look to give practical solution to conflicts arisen from social interaction. Human conducts that do not touch the rest of mankind should not be regulated by law (8), in attention to individual freedom, without which, the law, loses its fundamental principle of existence. The Law must respect private life and may only interfere when common wealth is clearly at risk (9). A lawyer finds himself standing at a difficult crossroad when upon an unfair law. Even when his duty is to put Justice well over law, he shall measure and consider a series of elements regarding the social consequences and effects of the execution of an unfair law, always in order to common wealth. Upon a tyrannic law, severely unjust and rejected by large sectors of the population, armed rebellion may even be justified. But before taking such a decision, it should be pondered if the rebellion has any chance to succeed and if as a result of rebelling there shall not come worst damage than that which we intend to correct. (...) For the lawyer, the opposition may be to use every legal resources he is offered by the system (10). Limits to human justice should never discourage the jurist, but only bring him closer to reality in his battle for absolute justice. This, absolute justice is the one that brings sense to his profession and not human justice. The lawyer may lose a well carried out case, may trip with a judge's incomprehension or succumb upon his contraries artifices. (...) Each jurist must look at himself as a soldier in an army that fights for absolute justice, each soldier giving a little of himself (11). A lawyer
must look towards the highest principles in his practice: In search for a graphic expression for all these principles, that are the ones that animate my practice, I proposed the following glyph:
Where the circle, in which everything else is, represents Justice, since under its order must law be understood and exercised. The square, limited by the circle, represents the Law, the one alive in a determined society in a given moment. And, finally, the triangle, that represents the exercise of Justice by means of the Law. The figures are placed in an interdependent relationship, in a way that the one that dominates and encircles everything is the sphere. Nor the Law nor its exercise may go past the boundaries of Justice. |
