The Bahamas is not a “closed shop” when it comes to the practice of law, according to Bahamas Bar Association President Elsworth Johnson, who asserted that the push to allow foreign lawyers to practice in The Bahamas – something already sanctioned by the Legal Professions Act – is being driven by “private interests.”
Johnson was responding to statements made on Wednesday by Minister of Financial Services Hope Strachan, who renewed the charge led by her predecessor in office, Elizabeth MP Ryan Pinder, to allow international law firms to set up shop in The Bahamas. Strachan raised the matter while opening a two-day Bahamas Institute of Financial Services (BIFS) conference.
Said the minister, “As we continue to further our efforts and to innovate for the future, one area identified as crucial to the growth of the financial services sector in The Bahamas is to allow international law firms to establish business operations in The Bahamas for the facilitation of cross border business and arbitral matters.” She went on to call The Bahamas “a closed shop.”
Johnson vigorously disputed that characterization.
No closed shop
“Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bahamas is not a closed shop, and you can find evidence of this in the recent Baha Mar case, where a number of Queens’ Counsels who were not Bahamian were allowed to come in and practice before The Bahamas bar,” Johnson asserted.
He pointed out that the Legal Professions Act – which allows foreign lawyers to come into The Bahamas and practice in areas where expertise is lacking in The Bahamas – is based on the whole concept behind the Immigration Act, that before someone can come to work you must first do your due diligence, to find out whether or not there are competent practitioners to perform those duties.
“And if you don’t have it, then for country, you can allow persons into the country,” Johnson said.
“So when the minister says that the bar is a closed shop, and that is the talk on the international market, I think it’s almost a dereliction of her duty as a member of the bar to say to those persons that if it is that they want to do business in The Bahamas and if they can’t find the persons who are qualified to do it – and/or with the persons who are qualified, there is a conflict with the concept of what is in the public interest – we will allow them in.
“This is an immigration issue,” Johnson said.
Private interests
Johnson stressed that the “closed shop” question is not new.
“This matter is not a recent vintage: the former minister, Minister Pinder, would have spoken to it; the present prime minister would have spoken to it, and on each occasion that they brought this matter up, the bar has responded by having a conclave with its members to speak to this issue,” he said.
He said the real issue is not one of ‘liberalization’ – it is just that foreign lawyers want to come into the jurisdiction and practice. He pointed out that the three regional law schools are pumping out lawyers annually.
“The market is saturated: there are lawyers all over the place, and there is always a complaint that there are too many lawyers. The government just has to decide what they want to do, but there’s no closed shop in The Bahamas,” the president said.
“For persons to say there is a closed shop? Most certainly the Legal Professions Act doesn’t provide it.
“And I think the government, they want to do something, and they want to do something for personal interests, and it has nothing to do with the Bahamas Bar Association because we have the qualified people,”
“We’ve built this industry, and we are prepared to service this industry. We have hundreds of young lawyers out there who can’t find jobs and are prepared to be trained. The government of The Bahamas has invested millions of dollars to train these people, and they are prepared to go against the best in the world, but because of private interests you have this thrust now saying we must liberalize, when we’re already liberalized.”
A matter of destiny
Johnson cited a recent conversation with Grand Bahama-based QC Harvey Tynes, who reportedly said he was witnessing a phenomenon wherein “foreign persons” go to work every day, work a full week, and can send money home and pay their bills, while qualified Bahamians stay home every day because they are not being hired, and thus they cannot pay their bills.
“What we don’t want is, for Bahamian lawyers, we don’t want to be the doorkeepers. We want the environment to be created where we’re the keepers of our own destiny.”
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