Every third lawyer has experienced threats to their life and harassment. Raising the index finger and mediation can slow down the problem.
The country’s lawyers hope that the police will be willing to move quickly with a clearly raised index finger when citizens have threatened lawyers’ lives.
Mediation meetings can also help to de-escalate conflicts.
This is stated by the chairman of the Danish Bar Council’s Criminal Law Committee, lawyer Mikael Skjødt.
A study last fall mapped the phenomenon.
Approximately one in three lawyers who work in family or criminal cases said that they have experienced threats and harassment within the past two years.
Recently, a man from Northwest Zealand was convicted for the third time for harassing and threatening a lawyer who had previously been his appointed defense attorney.
The man wanted to ‘slaughter’ the lawyer, his wife and their children, it was said, among other things.
“The problem is more serious than we previously thought, so we have to do something,” says Mikael Skjødt.
One of the ideas is an attempt to introduce a kind of hotline at the police, which is also used by members of parliament.
“Some people are probably beyond the reach of education. But others might be stopped if they are met by a police officer who quickly comes out and tells them in an authoritative manner that they are on the wrong path and what the consequences may be,” says Mikael Skjødt.
The rapid response may have a greater preventive effect than criminal proceedings, which often take a very long time.
The Bar Council has not yet contacted the police about the proposal.
An offer of some form of mediation between the lawyer and the angry former client could also potentially reduce the level of conflict, believes Mikael Skjødt.
The problem has been raised politically. At Christiansborg, the Conservatives and several other parties have argued that lawyers should have the same status as judges, prosecutors and others who participate in court hearings.
But the government, together with the SF and the Red-Green Alliance, has so far rejected the proposal that appointed lawyers should be covered by Section 119 of the Criminal Code.
The paragraph concerns threats and violence against those who work in public service or office.
In the upcoming penal reform, the government has announced that the penalty for threats against this group of people will increase. But this will only further expose the discrimination against lawyers, believes Mikael Skjødt.
In a debate article in Berlingske on Saturday, he and the chairman of the National Association of Defense Lawyers argue for political action.
In most family and criminal cases, lawyers are appointed by the court, required to take the cases, and paid by the public.
ritzau
