Speech by Leonardo Arnau, President of the OIAD
36th National Congress of Lawyers
Turin, 15 October 2025
I am very pleased and honoured to be able, on behalf of the OIAD, to deliver a welcome message to today’s conference, which represents a welcome and more than timely introduction to the start of the congress, as it allows us to reflect on the deeper meaning of our profession.
It is all the more significant that we are discussing the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Legal Profession at the Fondazione Forense, dedicated to the memory of a martyr of the Italian legal profession and democracy, President Fulvio Croce, who, 56 years ago, hosted the National Lawyers’ Congress here in Turin.
Special thanks must therefore go to the organising committee, the President of the National Bar Council, Francesco Greco, and the Italian delegation of the CCBE, led by Daniela Giraudo, as well as the President of the Turin Bar Association, Simona Grabbi, and the Croce Foundation.
I would like to welcome the presidents of the European bar associations present: we speak the same language and share the same values.
The issue of protecting the legal profession and its importance in our society has ancient roots; one need only think of Shakespeare’s Henry VI.
The first thing to do is to kill all the lawyers
This is a curious and rather sinister phrase. But its meaning is not what it seems. In Shakespeare’s play, it is the person who wants to seize power by violence and overthrow the public order who urges that the entire profession be eliminated as the first thing to do.
It is therefore a recognition of the role of lawyers as defenders of the values of justice and civilisation.
The legal profession has a significance that justifies its existence.
The reflections that will emerge from this conference help us to preserve our pride in what we do: a pride that should not be complacency or a quest for social recognition, but awareness and responsibility.
Lawyers often do not enjoy a good reputation in the public eye, to the point where the invitation to eliminate us all may raise a smile.
But the defence we provide is fundamental not only for those we assist, but also for every individual, for the community and for the fundamental rights of everyone.
The fundamental problem with human rights today is not so much justifying them as protecting them. This is not a philosophical problem, but a legal and political one.
The question raised by Norberto Bobbio in L’età dei diritti, Einaudi, Turin, 1990, is a concern that affects only certain regions of the world, particularly countries outside the Western sphere. The West likes to associate its identity with the history of human rights and the construction of a society in which the protection of those rights is guaranteed. Beyond the grey areas that have made this process anything but linear, anyone looking at the current map of Europe cannot fail to notice the presence of vast territories where the protection of human rights is not an established reality.
That is why, thirty-five years after the adoption of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers by the United Nations at the General Assembly held in Havana from 27 August to 7 September 1990 (A/RES/45/121), the Council of Europe adopted, on 12 March 2025, the first international treaty aimed at protecting the legal profession, in order to respond to the increasing attacks against it in the form of threats, intimidation and aggression or interference in the exercise of its functions.
Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Legal Profession
