Urgent problems of the attorney - client privilege

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of confidentiality of relations between a lawyer and a client. The author reveals the gap in the legislative regulation of the activities of lawyers who do not have the status of a lawyer, violating the constitutional right of citizens to qualified legal assistance. The author criticizes the practice allowing public prosecution authorities to interrogate a lawyer against the will of his principal as a witness in criminal cases on the circumstances of the commission of investigative actions, tax and banking legislation, violating the confidentiality of attorney-client relations. In the part of the tax legislation, the difference between the attorney's and the client's relations with the activities of other economic entities was ascertained, and in the part of the banking, the possibility for the supervising bodies to cover secretly a part of the information constituting a lawyer's secret was revealed. The author also raised the issue of the compliance of Article 7.1 of the Law on Countering the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime and Terrorism Financing, which imposes on the lawyer the obligation to report to his client, with the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.