Catatan Kuliah/Belajar Mandiri

Pertemuan Pertama Pasca UTS

24 November 2020

Dosen: Tanius Sebastian

Konsepsi Hukum yang Mengatur Ahli Hukum (Law Governing Lawyers)

Catatan kuliah/belajar mandiri ini berisi penjelasan dan panduan untuk memahami pustaka rujukan kita,
terutama Bab 1 yang berjudul “Defining the Problem”. Bab tersebut dibagi menjadi tiga sub-bagian,
yakni (1) tentang konsep moralitas dalam peran profesional; (2) tentang konsep etika dan moralitas
dalam hukum; dan (3) tentang ranah “etika hukum” dan “hukum yang mengatur ahli hukum”. Catatan
pertemuan pertama pasca UTS ini mengulas bagian ketiga dari Bab 1, dengan sub-judul “legal ethics and
law governing lawyers”, yang terdapat di halaman 17-20 .

1. Now we are on the professional ethics side of the bridge. What is required of lawyers as lawyers
by their professional role? Practicing lawyers sometimes have a tendency to identify ethics with
only the authoritative rules governing their conduct.
a) Masa pra UTS yang lalu kita mempelajari konsep etika hukum (legal ethics) dari salah satu
sisi jembatan moralitas peran, yakni sisi moralitas orang pada umumnya. Memasuki masa
pasca UTS ini, kita akan mendalami sisi yang lainnya, yakni sisi moralitas pengemban
profesi.
b) Pada sisi moralitas orang pada umumnya dari jembatan moralitas peran, refleksi etisnya
berpusat pada pertanyaan: apa yang menjadi tanggung jawab dan kewajiban dari para
ahli hukum sebagai orang biasa dalam menjalankan perannya dalam kehidupan sehari-
hari, seperti menjadi seorang ayah, atau tetangga, atau sahabat?
c) Pada sisi moralitas pengemban profesi dari jembatan moralitas peran, refleksi etisnya
berpusat pada pertanyaan: apa yang menjadi tanggung jawab dan kewajiban dari para
ahli hukum sebagai pengemban peran profesional?
d) Dalam menghadapi pertanyaan reflektif berdasarkan sisi moralitas peran tersebut, ahli-
ahli hukum yang bekerja di dalam praktik hukum memiliki kecenderungan untuk
mengidentifikasi jawabannya hanya dengan ahli-ahli yang telah ditetapkan di dalam
aturan-aturan tentang perilaku yang dibuat oleh pejabat yang berwenang.
e) Apa hubungannya keberadaan dan peran negara atau pemerintah di dalam tendensi
berpikir ahli hukum yang mengidentifikasi etika profesi hukum sebagai sesuatu yang sama
dengan peraturan perundangan? Apa pula implikasinya?

2. These generally take the form of codes of professional responsibility established by a bar
association, law society, or court setting forth rules respecting matters such as competent
representation, keeping client confidences, refraining from representing clients with conflicting
interests, charging reasonable fees, not introducing false evidence at trial, and not
communicating with the opposing party outside the presence of her lawyer.
a) Apa umumnya bentuk dari peraturan-peraturan yang dibuat oleh pejabat yang
berwenang tersebut?
b) Siapa saja umumnya pejabat yang berwenang tersebut?
c) Apa pula umumnya yang diatur di dalam bentuk-bentuk peraturan perilaku tersebut?

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3. These codes of “ethics” are perfectly unobjectionable – indeed, they are a good thing to the
extent that they define and enforce the obligations of lawyers with respect to clients and the
legal system. But, strictly speaking, they are part of the domain of positive law, not ethics.
Positive law here means simply that these rules are enacted pursuant to an official process of
defining norms, the violation of which may subject the violator to sanctions. By contrast,
principles of ethics, as that term is used here, are applicable without being officially
promulgated as law.
a) Kode-kode etik perilaku sangat tidak terbantahkan karena muatannya yang baik, yakni
bahwa kode etik tersebut membatasi dan menegakkan kewajiban-kewajiban dari para
ahli hukum dalam kaitannya dengan kepentingan klien dan sistem hukum.
b) Dengan hakikatnya seperti itu, kode etik menjadi bagian dari hukum positif. Padahal, kode
etik juga mengandung dan tidak dapat diceraikan dari prinsip-prinsip etis. Apa
problemnya dari perbedaan konseptual kode etik (sebagai konsep hukum positif dan
sebagai konsep prinsip etis)?

4. A lawyer has a legal obligation to safeguard confidential client information and will be subject
to penalties such as loss of her law license or a lawsuit by the client for breach of this duty. In
addition, a lawyer may have a professional ethical obligation to keep a secret if it was entrusted
to the lawyer by the client under circumstances in which the client justifiably trusted the lawyer
to protect his interests, which would apply even if there were no officially enacted rule of
professional conduct requiring confidentiality.
a) Menurut kode etik, terdapat yang disebut kewajiban hukum (legal obligation) dan
kewajiban etis profesional (professional ethical obligation). Apa perbedaan keduanya itu?

5. As part of the process of becoming a lawyer in many common law jurisdictions, a student must
take a course on a subject called legal ethics or professional responsibility. In the United States,
this subject became compulsory in law schools following the Watergate scandal and the
revelation that many of the government officials who participated in the coverup of wrongdoing
had been trained as lawyers. … they would have done things differently if they had known more
about the law governing the conduct of lawyers, such as the priority of the duty to avoid illegal
conduct over other obligations such as confidentiality. They also say, however, that knowing
the content of the rules is not enough. As Krogh put it, “The sad thing is, I never asked the komost
basic question in 1971 and 1972: ‘Is this right? Am I doing the right thing?’. That question – is
this right? – is the basic ethical issue we will consider here, and part of answering it will be
understanding the relationship between the law governing lawyers and more general principles
of right and wrong.
a) Potongan teks ini menjelakan latar belakang sosial-politik dari kemunculan dan
perkembangan bidang kajian etika profesi hukum sebagai mata kuliah wajib fakultas
hukum dalam konteks masyarakat Amerika Serikat.
b) Dengan latar belakang seperti itu, terdapat pertanyaan etis mendasar tentang profesi
hukum yang menunjukkan keterkaitan antara law governing lawyers sebagai hukum
positif dan prinsip tentang benar salah sebagai prinsip moral. Apa pertanyaan yang
dimaksud?

6. One may also ask whether conduct is right or wrong as considered solely by the standards of
professional ethics. As it happens, not surprisingly, conduct such as actively participating in a
client’s cover-up of a crime is a violation of professional ethics, as well as being wrong in
ordinary moral terms. There are many cases in which ordinary morality and professional ethics

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come into conflict, but do not be too quick to assume that every instance of wrongdoing is like
this. A great deal of conduct that is morally wrong, such as lying, is also a violation of law, and
it is wrong in professional ethics terms to violate the law or to assist one’s client in violating it.
a) Bagaimana hubungan antara (1) etika menurut hukum positif yang mengatur ahli hukum
(2) etika menurut prinsip moral biasa, dan (3) etika menurut prinsip moral profesional?
Bagaimana persinggungan di antara ketiganya?