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There is a common saying that if you throw a lawyer in shark-infested waters, he or she will not be attacked by the sharks. The reason? Professional courtesy, one shark does not attack the other.
What this reveals is that the legal profession, especially in Fiji, does not rate very high in image and standing. I would rather have more faith and trust in a real estate agent or a secondhand car salesman, than a lawyer in Fiji. Therefore the Fiji Law Society’s holier than though attitude is questionable.
What we hear is that they expect to suspend, debar or censure those of it's members who it deems were giving advice to the military.
Yet, they were blind to questionable advice that one of their former debarred and suspended lawyers had been giving to a government which had more faith in those with checkered past, questionable characters and criminal records than clean, honest people.
If the Fiji Law Society had in the past stronger spine and disciplinary procedures, then they would have ensured that any lawyer abusing its trust and trust fund should be prosecuted and banned for life. They should not be unleashed on the community to further abuse our trust. But their indiscretion allowed such a lawyer to become an adviser to the Fiji government, and posing as its unelected Attorney General. If anything that is responsible for Fiji’s current plight, it is the wanting legal advice to the government and crooked ways these advice were given to draft questionable legislation while the essential ones, like the Code of Conduct Bill, were left waiting.
If the Fiji Law Society wishes to redeem itself for spinelessness of its past, then it needs to accept the reality of the situation and assist wherever it can, and not prevent any help. In Hindi, we say,”na hage, na rasta chore.” If Fiji Law Society cannot do any good, it should not stop anybody else from doing so.
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