Disciplinary implications following the conviction of a lawyer for animal cruelty
Israel Lawyers Forum for Animal Protection (ILFAP) submitted a complaint to the Ethics Committee of the Israel Bar against a lawyer convicted of the intentional abuse and killing of an animals.
In its complaint, the ILFAP argued that in accordance with Section 1 of the Israel Bar Act, the Bar’s role is to ensure the values and standards of the legal profession, and since the public view of the professions is influenced from the behavior of lawyers in their private lives, safeguarding the high moral standing of the Bar requires a disciplinary hearing as to the ethics of such behavior under the above law. The ILFAP demanded that the Ethics Committee file a complaint to the Israel Bar’s and that any punishment imposed reflect the cruelty and severity of his crime and its circumstances.
The Forum also demanded that the Ethics Committee officially censure the lawyer’s that the crime for which the lawyer was convicted - causing suffering to an animal, abuse, or torture as defined by the Animal Protection Law (Protection of Animals), 1994 - is considered by the Ethics Committee as morally and ethically reprehensible that brings disgrace to the legal profession, and constitutes a crime with severe ethical implications.
The forum emphasized that universal values require that all humans treat animals with sensitivity and kindness and in accordance with Israeli law, Jewish halachic law, and the same universal values of morality and justice that obligate all societies that consider themselves ethical and progressive. And this of course is all the more significant when the perpetrator is a lawyer, as lawyers are held by the public to a higher moral and ethical standard as the gatekeepers of the rule of law, and ensuring fairness and justice for all, both humans and non-humans.
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