The warning applies to a case where a 15-year-old, suspected of, among other things, a serious weapon crime and a serious drug crime, requested Viktor Banke as his defender.
According to the investigation, Banke has made the assessment that he could handle the case and therefore accepted the assignment. But during the process, Banke has since replaced himself with two other lawyers – without the court’s permission.
Banke states in the investigation that he quickly realized that the case was special because it involved such a young person with very serious criminal suspicions. Already at the first meeting with the client, Banke therefore informed that “there could be a need for substitution”, ie that another lawyer may sometimes replace Banke so that the process does not stop. Something the client agreed to, according to Banke.
After that, Viktor Banke himself and another lawyer must have taken turns meeting the 15-year-old and attending the interrogation. When the arrest was lifted, the 15-year-old was placed in a Sis home where the other lawyer visited him on one occasion.
To avoid a replacement at the main hearing to be held during the summer, Viktor Banke gave the prosecutor a proposal for a date when he could attend. But since the prosecution was not ready for the main hearing before Banke went on holiday, he agreed with the 15-year-old that his colleague would replace him so that the main hearing would not be delayed. When the hearing was scheduled for the week in which the colleague had also booked a holiday, it was decided that a third lawyer would represent the 15-year-old. He then had twelve days to prepare the defense. The client was not completely satisfied with the solution, but still agreed according to Viktor Banke – something that is denied by the 15-year-old according to the report.
A couple of days after the top lawyer returned from vacation, the verdict was announced – the 15-year-old was convicted of aggravated weapon crime, aggravated arms smuggling, aggravated drug smuggling and drug smuggling with the penalty of one year in closed juvenile detention. The 15-year-old chose, on the advice of Viktor Banke, not to appeal the verdict.
According to that notification who has joined the Swedish Bar Association, Viktor Banke and his law firm have not defended the 15-year-old as promised. Viktor Banke is described as absent during a larger part of the assignment. The efforts of the third lawyer who finally defended the client during the main hearing are also criticized.
“The lawyers only seem to have charged the taxpayers without actually doing the job for which they have been compensated,” it says in the report. According to the ruling, Viktor Bank’s law firm received compensation of SEK 295,877 from the state.
The report also states that the 15-year-old partly chose not to appeal the verdict because “the lawyer does not care”. After the verdict was announced, the 15-year-old’s family and staff from the Sis home tried to call all the lawyers several times to get advice. A couple of hours before the 15-year-old had booked time to declare himself satisfied, he was advised by the lawyers to do so.
According to the report, the 15-year-old’s family thinks that the verdict was well-balanced and reasonable, but that it was the prosecutor’s merit and not the lawyer’s.
The Bar Association has after review of the report and statements from both Viktor Banke and the third lawyer regarding the case decided to give Viktor Banke a warning for his actions. The decision states that the assignment as a public defender is a personal assignment and that a lawyer can not bring in a replacement without the court’s permission – even if the client has given consent. The court granted permission for a replacement during the main hearing but not during the preliminary investigation.
Viktor Banke should therefore have asked for permission to have another lawyer present at the interrogations with the 15-year-old.
But the Swedish Bar Association also writes that in “practice there are different views among the court’s actors” in the question of what legal conditions a lawyer has to bring in a replacement during the preliminary investigation. The decision states that the Bar Association itself believes that a replacement can be brought in without the court’s permission and the association has requested clarification of how the legislation is to be applied in that matter. But as long as no change in the law has taken place, permission is required.
The committee is serious on Viktor Banke’s handling of the case and points not least to the fact that the client was “very young” and had requested Banke as a defender. The decision states that Banke “seriously violated good legal practice”.
Banke is critical of the decision to give him a warning when the Bar Association itself questions what the rules look like.
– As I see it, the community has warned me of a violation of a rule that does not exist. And which they themselves do not think exists, he says to DN.
– There is nothing in the decision that says that the case itself is mismanaged. It’s just a matter of requesting substitution or not. That’s what I’m blamed for not doing. Had I known that this was the community’s view of the matter, I would of course have requested substitution.
Apart from the discussion about the rules. Are you otherwise satisfied with how this case has been handled?
– I know that this case is well handled. The decision to bring in another lawyer during the interrogations was made in consultation with the client so that it would go as quickly as possible.
The Bar Association does not criticize the fact that a third lawyer was brought in as a replacement during the main hearing itself because it was approved by the court. But according to the report, it is precisely this part that caused the 15-year-old the most damage because the lawyer did not have a relationship with the client and did not know about the case before.
According to Viktor Banke, it is the district court and the prosecuting authority that are to blame in that matter.
– There was a single week in the whole year where neither I in the first place nor the other lawyer who knew the client could take it. And I’m very disappointed that the main hearing was adjourned that week. I presented that to the district court and the prosecutor, says Viktor Banke.
– I can say with a clear conscience that I did everything in my power to prevent that situation from arising. And I think it’s really, really bad that they could not solve it, to be honest. Just when it is a 15-year-old who has requested a certain lawyer.
As for the third lawyer, who is also criticized in the report for his contribution at the main hearing, the board does not consider that any rules have been broken.
Cases at the Swedish Bar Association’s disciplinary committee
A total of 647 cases were processed by the Disciplinary Board in 2021.
220 cases were decided by the disciplinary committee in plenary and 149 cases resulted in the lawyer receiving a sanction.
In 86 cases the lawyer received a reminder, In 44 cases lawyers received warnings and in 15 cases the second most severe penalty was awarded – warning with penalty.
Four lawyers were excluded from the Swedish Bar Association in 2021.
Source: The Swedish Bar Association
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