What Professional Ethics Means, and Where the Bar Council Gets the Power to Impose It

In one line

Professional ethics is a set of rules the Bar Council of India makes under a statutory power, and breaking one is not merely bad manners but an offence that can end a career.

In exam wording: professional ethics for advocates in India consists of the standards of professional conduct and etiquette laid down by the Bar Council of India under section 7(1)(b) read with section 49(1)(c) of the Advocates Act 1961, breach of which constitutes professional misconduct punishable under section 35.

The chain that gives ethics its force

A student meeting this topic asks, reasonably, why a rule about not putting your photograph in a newspaper is law at all. The answer is a chain of four links, and it is worth learning as a chain.

Link one, the function. Section 7(1)(b) makes it a function of the Bar Council of India "to lay down standards of professional conduct and etiquette for advocates."

Link two, the power to make rules. A function is not a power. Section 49(1)(c) supplies the power: the Bar Council of India "may make rules for discharging its functions under this Act", and in particular rules prescribing "the standards of professional conduct and etiquette to be observed by advocates."

Link three, the rules themselves. Made under that power, they are Part VI Chapter II of the Bar Council of India Rules, headed "Standards of Professional Conduct and Etiquette", and the heading of the Chapter says on its face: "Rules under Section 49(1)(c) of the Act read with the Proviso thereto."

Link four, the sanction. Section 35(1): where a State Bar Council has reason to believe that an advocate on its roll "has been guilty of professional or other misconduct", it shall refer the case to its disciplinary committee, which may reprimand, suspend or remove him under section 35(3).

So a rule of etiquette becomes enforceable law because the Act authorises it and because breaking it is misconduct. The chain is what a good answer states first.

The meaning: ethics, etiquette, morality and law

MU's topic asks for the meaning of professional ethics, and the way to answer is by distinguishing four ideas that students run together.

Law is what a court will enforce against anybody. The whole population is bound by it.

Professional ethics is the body of obligations owed by a member of a profession because he is a member of it. It binds only advocates and it is enforced by the profession's own disciplinary machinery.

Etiquette is the narrower part of that body which concerns manner and form rather than substance: what an advocate wears, how he addresses the court, whether he may appear on a sign-board as a specialist. The Bar Council's Chapter is headed "conduct AND etiquette" because it contains both.