Submission from Gordon Barlow, Cayman
Islands
Dear Sirs,
The attachment is my Word copy of an essay published
in the Cayman Net News last weekend, in print and online.[308]
It reported the fears of some of our private lawyers that the
rule of law in Cayman is being undermined by certain actions of
the Foreign & Commonwealth Office's local agents. The essay
has created a bit of a fuss in legal circles here. Its predecessors
on the same general topic have been quoted in letters between
the local Law Society and the FCO's Attorney-General; those of
you who are lawyers will not need reminding of how offensive it
is to quote a non-lawyer's opinions on legal matters...
It seems to some observers that the FCO may
be orchestrating the take-over by the Attorney-General's Office
of the entire administration of justice. Police, Prosecution,
Defence and Judges will all be on the same team. (Locally appointed
judges are allowed to retain their close attachment to their law
firms, as you will be aware.)
Some of the current fuss centres around the
possibility that the FCO is, unannounced, pulling the plug on
Cayman's tax-haven operations. I myself would have thought that
these operations helped the UK's national interests, in one way
or another, but maybe I am quite wrong. There is the raw material
for a Parliamentary Question on the issue, and a PQ would not
be in Britain's national interest, surely. In any case, the matter
is one that your Committee might want to enquire into, before
things get totally out of hand.
2 June 2008
308 Not printed as publicly available. Back
|
