A top Queen's Counsel has urged that there should be a "high-level public discussion" on the role of immigration as a tool of development, in the wake of recent comments suggesting that the legal profession is too closed and the government should consider allowing investors to trade investment for citizenship.
Speaking to the question of whether the Bahamas Bar Association should be "cracked open" to allow the easier entrance of foreign attorneys to practice in this country, Brian Moree Q.C., said a balancing act must occur.
"I think that the immigration policy of the country is an important tool of development, which can be used in order to try to balance the interests of two important constituencies," he said."On the one hand, it must take into account the legitimate and reasonable expectations of qualified Bahamians, who have a right to expect that they will have access to opportunities in this industry in their own country, and on the other hand we must balance the interests of the compelling need for sufficient numbers of highly-qualified and specialized experts within specific areas of the financial industry, in order to be able to service the needs of a sophisticated and demanding marketplace."
Addressing the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Caribbean Conference 2014 last week, attorney and key advisor to prime minister Perry Christie, Sean McWeeney, of Graham Thompson and Co., said that the Bahamas Bar Association is too closed to foreign lawyers, with a lack of financial law specialists "crippling" the financial services industry.
President of the Bahamas Bar Association, Elsworth Johnson, said he is "diametrically" opposed to McWeeney's comments, and said that there are many lawyers with the specialist skills McWeeney spoke of, and where there are not enough, training should be a priority.
Moree told Guardian Business that he believes "we have to accept" that no country in the world, let alone a small one such as The Bahamas, can reasonably expect to meet all of its human resources needs from within its own country.
"There has to be a recognition that from time to time in specific target areas you'll need to supplement your
local labour force with expatriates," he said.
"I think anyone involved in business generally, and in the financial services industry, will confirm this global business moves on the back of relationships and if you are seeking to attract the multinational service providers and institutions, you are going to have to accept that they will require some of their own staff and employees and if you don't want to accommodate that then you shouldn't expect that multinational business to come to The Bahamas."
The attorney said that there must be a public discussion that considers those "two separate interests".
"In my mind the solution lies in trying to properly accommodate both of those interests in an immigration policy that is well articulated, has the overall support of the Bahamian public, and supports the operation of international business."
Referring specifically to the issue of investor citizenship, which McWeeney also promoted as a means of growing the economy, Moree said that The Bahamas "has to make some decisions".
"The financial services industry today is very different from what it was even ten years ago, and one way of attracting money to The Bahamas is to attract high net worth individuals and ultra high net worth individuals and multinational business and money will follow them.
"It is a strategy which I know many jurisdictions are looking at and it's a legitimate strategy which we as a country have to decide if we want to employ as we try to find ways to expand the financial services industry, within the context of what's going on in these international agencies which are insisting on more and more levels of transparency.
"Some would say that's a better quality of business anyway, when it results in real tangible business moving here," he added.
The government has recently been signalling that it wishes to be more accommodating in its immigration policy, in order to assist in growing the financial services sector, although it has not come forward with a specific position on an investor citizenship program.

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