Prejudicial Extra-Judicial Comments: Ms Chimamanda Adichie’s Statement
While the list of what constitutes abuse of court process isn’t exhaustive, it also covers situations where trial Lawyers make extra-judicial comments that may be prejudicial to the court proceedings, or may interfere with the fair trial of a case. Such behaviour is a breach of the ‘sub judice’ rule, that is, Section 33 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023 (RPC). Usually, one finds that it is Lawyers who want to garner support from the unknowing public because their cases may be weak in law, that deploy such tactics to win sympathy. Nevertheless, it appears that Section 33 of the RPC only applies to Counsel who are trial Lawyers in a matter, and are prohibited from making prejudicial statements (fair comments are allowed by all), and don’t directly apply to litigants and others. Therefore, Counsel can decide not to discourage their clients from making statements that they as trial Lawyers are prohibited from making, as some type of tactic to win in th...