Re:Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for ...
by cmurf on Sunday May 05, 2019 @04:58PM
(#19835013)
Lawyers are not diplomats. A diplomat is an official representative of their country.
Re:Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for ...
by asr on Sunday May 05, 2019 @06:14PM
(#19835417)
Broadly speaking, I agree with you, but, FYI, diplomatic status is not just for "diplomats." US government lawyers travel on diplomatic passports for official business (eg depositions in other countries). And all lawyers are "officers of the court" and can be, for example, forced to take random cases pro bono if some judge goes a little kooky and demands it. So it's not as far-fetched as it might sound to give all lawyers diplomatic passports for travel.
I wonder if you could make the case here that the US government should be ensuring the functioning of its judicial system by issuing lawyers who leave the country a “loopback” diplomatic pouch—one issued by X, destined for X, protected during travels to all not-X.
(This could currently be achieved by X-gov issuing a pouch destined for X-embassy in transit country Y, which the traveller must visit to have their documents re-wrapped in a pouch from X-embassy back to X-gov. The change would just simplify things by making the visit to X-embassy unnecessary.)