Mr Seenath Jairam, Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, says in his state­ment of Oc­to­ber 18 that he is "sat­is­fied that (he) breached no eth­i­cal or pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards by ac­cept­ing the brief from the Min­istry of Fi­nance" for the Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to the CL Fi­nan­cial, etc mat­ter.

In his el­e­gant­ly tren­chant let­ter to Mr Jairam of the same date, Mr Karl Hud­son-Phillips gives ex­am­ples which pur­port to show that, on the con­trary, Mr Jairam in­deed vi­o­lat­ed the le­gal Code of Ethics and failed to ad­here not mere­ly "to the high­est, but (al­so) to the most ba­sic prin­ci­ples of pro­fes­sion­al eti­quette and con­duct of the Bar."

He charges Jairam with hav­ing "failed the (Law) As­so­ci­a­tion and the pro­fes­sion (and) done a grave dis­ser­vice to the Hugh Wood­ing Law School..." And he ends: "Need I say more as to what your du­ty now is and what you should do?" No hint could be more pel­lu­cid­ly clear.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion is, or should be seen to be, one of the in­sti­tu­tion­al pil­lars of the so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when so many of those pil­lars are un­der siege-a sit­u­a­tion which did not be­gin yes­ter­day, or even in 2010. It is no good say­ing that on­ly at­tor­neys should be con­cerned about the as­so­ci­a­tion, as if it were an ex­clu­sive pri­vate club of lim­it­ed mem­ber­ship, sit­ting in re­gal iso­la­tion from the rest of so­ci­ety.

Quite the con­trary, its mem­bers in­ter­act on a dai­ly ba­sis with mem­bers of the pub­lic-they have to-and mem­bers of the pub­lic must ac­cord­ing­ly have their say on its per­for­mance.

It is not on­ly a mat­ter of the pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tence of the at­tor­ney; that, alas, is al­ready a fac­tor of di­min­ish­ing worth in this coun­try. It is above all a mat­ter of trust, of con­fi­dence on the part of the in­di­vid­ual that the at­tor­ney will do the right thing, that he or she will serve his or her client's best in­ter­est to the best of his or her abil­i­ty and not place an ob­ses­sion with fees (and, in not a few cas­es, kick­backs) above the prin­ci­ple of prop­er and trans­par­ent rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

The same ap­plies to oth­er pro­fes­sions as well. The doc­tor who steals or sab­o­tages State med­ical equip­ment, or sends to his pri­vate clin­ic for treat­ment a pa­tient who could re­ceive the same care free, or at a much low­er cost, in a gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal or health cen­tre, dis­plays the same ra­pac­i­ty, the same ab­sence of an eth­i­cal com­pass, the same cyn­i­cal ded­i­ca­tion to self above pub­lic and na­tion.

As a mem­ber of the pub­lic, I am as­tound­ed at what Mr Hud­son-Phillips has said about Mr Jairam's be­hav­iour (I have so far heard no refu­ta­tion from the lat­ter). I must there­fore join Mr Hud­son-Phillips in say­ing to Mr Jairam that there is now on­ly one ho­n­ourable op­tion be­fore him. If he seizes it, and seizes it quick­ly, he may in part re­deem him­self.

I have noth­ing-for now–to say about Mr Joseph Toney and Mr Prakash Ra­mad­har, ex­cept that the tenor of their re­marks im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing Mr Toney's ac­cep­tance of the Min­istry of Fi­nance brief-in essence, "is we time now"-has done noth­ing to en­hance such rep­u­ta­tions as they may have.

Regi­nald Du­mas

Ba­co­let, To­ba­go