Lawyer-client confidentiality is under authoritarian attack on several fronts, threatening the future of the profession, the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe has warned.

Writing in the Gazette this week, Jonathan Goldsmith argues that initiatives of the World Bank, EU and UN indicate that lawyers are ‘no longer seen as professionals dealing individually with clients within a framework of the rule of law’. Instead, they are viewed as ‘gatekeepers’ to information that ‘prosecuting authorities or campaigners want to access’.