Mackenzie to co-chair new IBA government lawyer forum

A new Forum for Government and Public Lawyers is being set up within the International Bar Association, with Scottish Government lawyer Andrew Mackenzie as one of two people tasked with leading the project.

The SPPI (Section of Public and Professional Interest) is intended as a place where government and public lawyers can discuss issues around the values and objectives of public service, and ethical and other issues concerning their role and practice. It is hoped it will reach out to public lawyers not currently involved in the IBA.

Andrew Mackenzie, currently on secondment from the Government legal service to manage the Scottish Arbitration Centre, is a member of the IBA’s SPPI Council Advisory Board, as is co-chair Federica d’Alessandra, deputy director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict and a public international law expert. Andy Beattie, chief parliamentary counsel for the Scottish Government and President of the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel, has agreed to sit on the new committee’s advisory board.

Mr Mackenzie said there had been limited authoritative writing on government lawyers and the values that ground their service. “The traditional understanding seems to be that government lawyers are to consider themselves as being under the same regime and restrictions as their private counterparts. However, some argue there is a ‘public interest serving role’ for government lawyers, namely the proposition that government lawyers have greater duties to serve the public interest than their counterparts in private practice, although this concept remains controversial. We need a forum where public lawyers can discuss these issues.

“Aside from ethics, the Forum will consider suggestions that government lawyers may also face a higher threshold in bringing or defending a claim, legal privilege, and politicisation.”

Ms d’Alessandra added that although the IBA offered general content of interest to government and public lawyers, “focused content around the role and practice of the government/public lawyer, including around the values and objectives that ground public service, is required”.