Morris Cargill

A WHILE ago an attorney-at-law was suspended from practice by the General Legal Council. When I read of this I assumed that the attorney-at-law had been struck off the Rolls for fraud. This assumption was incorrect.

In point of fact, the attorney-at-law had suffered only a nine months suspension by the Disciplinary Committee for a failure to discharge pr ofessional responsibility, a distinction made by the Disciplinary Com-mittee, which I do not find very convincing.

In fact, I had confused the first case mentioned here with a second case that had been brought against the attorney for fraud in the Resident Magistrate Court at Half Way Tree. This case is now the subject of an appeal.

You will no doubt have noticed that in both cases I have been very careful for a personal reason not to mention names, for I do not wish to be unnecessarily hurtful.

Nevertheless, I am watching with care the case of the trial at the Resident Magistrate Court at Half Way Tree, which is now subject to appeal.

The alacrity with which numerous lawyers appeal leaves me feeling that greater care should be taken to investigate breaches of the law by attorneys, and to enforce the necessary penalties. The cases I have just mentioned are relatively unimportant when compared with the large number of cases of fraud or alleged fraud which have arisen as a result of the irregularities in our financial institutions.

Mire of appeals

One perhaps ought to mention cases concerning Clinton Hart and Company (Mr. Hart is not here personally concerned); cases concerning the Pantons, the Ocho Rios hotel in which the Century National Bank is involved; the Fullertons, and the heavy indebtedness of Eddie Seaga. This is a short list only. But I mention them here because these seem to be among major matters which for some reason or another appear to have been either overlooked or submerged in a mire of appeals.

I think it is important that journalists should keep constantly aware of matters of this kind, which should not be everlastingly buried by the skills of highly paid lawyers. Indeed, one gets the feeling sometimes that these lawyers have more than just vested interest in the English Privy Council.

We hear a great deal from time to time about the Rule of Law, but unless frauds or dishonest lawyers are exposed the Rule of Law will be greatly diminished. I have resolved that this column will continue to refresh memories of these cases, both large and small.

It is impossible to consider tax havens without also considering the question of money laundering. I am glad to see that leaders of the Franco-Caribbean Summit have started to wake up about their own best interests.

They are looking to the French President to halt what they feel is an assault by developed countries upon the offshore tax havens that are so important to small Caribbean countries.

"The reality is that we are under siege", Prime Minister Lester Bird of Antigua told the Associated Press.

Tax havens

The USA, partly as a result of its vain attempts to diminish the trade in ganja, has been seeking to impose upon the Caribbean a ban on all money resulting from this trade. In pursuit of this unavailing effort, the USA, and some other developed countries, have been attempting to bully the many Caribbean islands into destroying what they describe as illegal tax havens. We have been subjected to this foolishness by the American insistence on Jamaican laws that for us have a destructive purpose.

I have regularly written against the American folly described as money laundering. If the USA is stupid enough to accumulate huge amounts of drug money, it should not complain that some of that money is used by Jamaicans, and other Caribbean countries for their very necessary economic development. For example, Chiquita has bribed not only leading Democrats, but leading Republicans as well, into the passing of regulations in Europe, which are bent on the total destruction of important sections of the Caribbean banana Industry.

Cynical absurdity.

For the USA to use the fiction of protecting us from money laundering can only be described as a cynical absurdity.

Our fragile Caribbean communities are being battered, not only by falling agricultural prices, but by crime waves created primarily by the American armed prohibition of our ganja production.

Our bankers in Jamaica, and also those throughout the Caribbean are being told that they should not aid and abet what is known as 'money laundering'. But if the Caribbean has any sense, it would specialise in tax havens, and 'money laundering'. If we do not, it will be the Americans who will take us to the cleaners.

* Morris Cargill is The Gleaner's senior columnist who has been writing for more than 48 years.