It is to be hoped that the pub­lic spat be­tween a past pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and the in­cum­bent has now come to an end. But that's not to say that the squab­ble, and the way it was car­ried out, were nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing. Karl Hud­son-Phillips QC, a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al judge, took is­sue with the con­duct of the cur­rent Law As­so­ci­a­tion head, Seenath Jairam, SC.

Al­though they had been friends for decades, Hud­son-Phillips told off Jairam in a short but very force­ful let­ter, rep­ri­mand­ing him for re­turn­ing the brief of a group of Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers and ac­cept­ing an­oth­er from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to ap­pear in the Cli­co Com­mis­sion of En­quiry. Jairam re­spond­ed like­wise, al­though at far greater length, and Hud­son-Phillips replied in turn.

Some ob­servers may have felt that these mat­ters should be dis­cussed be­hind closed doors, among mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion. It should be re­mem­bered, how­ev­er, that the brief in ques­tion re­lat­ed to pub­lic busi­ness-an en­quiry in­to the col­lapse of a gi­ant group of com­pa­nies that has had a ma­jor im­pact on the econ­o­my, the Trea­sury, and the sav­ings and the en­tire fu­tures of thou­sands of peo­ple. The en­quiry and its lawyers, more­over, are be­ing paid for with pub­lic funds.

It is on­ly ap­pro­pri­ate that if an is­sue aris­es as to the con­duct of an at­tor­ney hired to do busi­ness on be­half of the peo­ple, dis­cus­sion of it should take place in pub­lic. This mat­ter, as well as the is­sue in­volv­ing in­cor­rect fig­ures be­ing giv­en by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al about le­gal fees paid to some lawyers for state briefs, has made known some dis­turb­ing facts.

It is trou­bling that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, who should be in pos­ses­sion of the records of the hir­ing of at­tor­neys by the State, could seem­ing­ly be so wrong in his state­ment on the amounts of fees, and this ac­cord­ing to the at­tor­neys who are said to be the re­cip­i­ents of those fees.

Mr Ram­lo­gan de­scribed the phe­nom­e­non as a gold rush by lawyers, and even if the fig­ures he gave were in­deed in­flat­ed, it may be very use­ful if the spot­light is now turned on the amount the State spends on hir­ing lawyers; the process by which such de­ci­sions are made, both in terms of the iden­ti­ties of and the rea­sons for hir­ing such lawyers; the con­crete re­sults and ben­e­fits to the pub­lic that even­tu­al­ly re­sult from these ex­pen­sive briefs; and the ba­sis on which the fees are cal­cu­lat­ed.

Usu­al­ly, these mat­ters are kept se­cret and on­ly be­come known when there are se­vere neg­a­tive con­se­quences-in­clud­ing a high cost to tax­pay­ers. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly so with is­sues in­volv­ing the le­gal and med­ical pro­fes­sions, which are of­ten con­duct­ed be­hind a thick cloak of se­cre­cy.

Prac­ti­tion­ers are re­luc­tant to let in the light of day on top­ics which may in­clude not on­ly scan­dalous­ly high fees or eth­i­cal is­sues, but al­so, in the case of med­i­cine, mat­ters of life and death.

This is an in­creas­ing­ly liti­gious so­ci­ety, and yet med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers are rarely the sub­ject of law­suits. Sad­ly, this is not be­cause they nev­er make er­rors and are nev­er guilty of neg­li­gence or in­com­pe­tence, but all too of­ten it is be­cause their col­leagues are un­will­ing to tes­ti­fy oth­er­wise in court. Pro­fes­sion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty is thus al­lowed to out­weigh the pub­lic in­ter­est.

That the cur­rent is­sues are be­ing de­bat­ed pub­licly is a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment. Open dis­cus­sions-even in­clud­ing the an­gry ex­changes-are a step in the right di­rec­tion to­ward trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and fair­ness in the con­duct of pub­lic busi­ness.