privileged or sensitive details that could jeopardise the client’s position. This collaboration empowers families to play a constructive role, while ensuring the integrity of the legal defence remains uncompromised. Confidentiality and Data Protection 19. Lawyers must ensure that all communications with their clients, through all means including in-person visits, are treated as strictly confidential, taking proactive steps to protect this confidentiality throughout the legal process. Lawyers should also actively inform their clients of their right to confidential communication and ensure they understand how sensitive information will be handled and protected. Upholding confidentiality fosters trust, encourages full participation in the defence, and is essential to preserving the integrity of attorney-client privilege. Strict adherence to confidentiality protocols is a core professional and ethical obligation. Lawyers must remain alert to any attempts—by authorities or otherwise—to undermine this protection and take all necessary steps to prevent breaches, thereby safeguarding both the client’s rights and the fairness of the proceedings. Chapter IV ENSURING FAIRNESS AND PROTECTION IN CAPITAL CASES Preventing Torture and Ill-treatment in Capital Cases 20. Lawyers must take proactive and strategic measures to safeguard their clients from torture, coercion, violence, or other forms of ill-treatment, particularly during arrest, detention, and interrogation. Given the heightened risks of abuse in capital cases, lawyers must act as frontline safeguards against practices designed to extract confessions and/or information, undermine fair trial rights, or exert undue pressure on defendants. Lawyers must actively monitor detention conditions and advocate for safeguards that prevent mistreatment, including access to legal counsel during interrogations, protections against incommunicado detention, and the right to remain silent. Pre-trial detention is often characterised by overcrowding, poor supervision, and unchecked power dynamics, making individuals facing capital charges especially vulnerable. Lawyers must ensure that any signs of physical or psychological abuse are promptly identified, meticulously documented, and brought to the attention of oversight bodies, courts, or international mechanisms. Where mistreatment occurs, lawyers must file urgent legal challenges to exclude coerced evidence and demand accountability for violations. Beyond legal advocacy, lawyers should work in coordination with independent medical professionals and forensic experts to assess, document, and present evidence of torture or other ill-treatment. They must also push for systemic reforms, including greater transparency in detention records, independent monitoring of interrogation practices and detention facilities, and adherence to international human rights standards such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Istanbul Protocol). In collaboration with civil society March 2025 12