EDITORIAL

The Hyatt Case which is presently engaging the attention of the local High Court has caused this newspaper to place the Barbados Bar Association under the microscope. We went as far as questioning whether in its recent public representations it was not revealing a political agenda.

The recent budget debate in the House of Assembly now demands that we subject the agenda of that body to even greater public scrutiny.

The Bar Association recently jumped to take up the case of Mr. David Commissiong when it claimed that he was attacked on the floor of Parliament by a member for his opposition to the Hyatt project. It should be worthy of note that Mr. Commissiong’s standing in the case is that of “an aggrieved person” rather than an Attorney-at-Law. However the Association pleaded his right under the Constitution to act in the matter and since it stood to represent the interest of the Attorney-at-Law, it owed him an obligation to lend its support to his cause.

During her reply to the Budget presented by the Minister of Finance on Wednesday last, Miss Mia Mottley, the leader of the Opposition, made a savage attack by one identified and one identifiable Attorney-at-Law for extorting fees claimed for work done on Government projects. That attack has received even wider circulation by social media and a number of named Attorneys-at-Law, all of whom are being perceived as supporters of the present Government, have been vilified; they have all been accused of charging and receiving inflated fees and gross professional dishonesty, in that they received those fees for work that was not done.

The issue of fees charged by lawyers for work done must be of special interest to all lawyers engaged in the practice of law in Barbados; those fees are regulated by a Statute which sets out a scale by which those fees are calculated; therefore an attack on any group of lawyers is a potential attack on every lawyer in private practice in Barbados. But noticeably the umbrella body responsible for those lawyers has remained mute in the face of this attack.

This strange selective agenda of the Barbados Bar Association must be a matter for public concern.

The sanctity of the lawyer/client relationship is an important tenet for the effective administration of justice in this country; it requires that all matters between a client and his lawyer be treated with the strictest possible confidentiality. It has however now been breached by a sinister and insidious attack by the Leader of the Opposition.

It must be worthy of note that Miss Mottley herself is one of Her Majesty’s Counsel and a former Attorney General of Barbados and by extension a former leader of the Bar. This fact should be worthy of consideration by the Barbados Bar Association. It has however remained silent.

In light of all this and in light of the fact that the Barbados Bar Association has entertained such a willful silence in this matter, we are again forced to question whether the Barbados Bar Association has not now fully embarked upon a political agenda that clearly identifies it with a political party.