The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Immigration minister yesterday lashed out at suggestions that “inflexible” policies were preventing the Bahamas from becoming an international arbitration centre, adding that it was the Bahamas Bar Council which effectively determined whether foreign attorneys could be brought in.

Fred Mitchell implied that the Immigration Department took its lead from the Bahamas Bar Council on approving temporary legal work permits, seemingly addressing comments by retired banker and Tribune columnist. Richard Coulson.

Mr Coulson. in a recent letter to the editor, backed the sentiments of attorney Caryl Lashley. Mrs Lashley, a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Bahamas, told a Bahamas Society of Engineers (BSE) luncheon that this nation will never become an international arbitration centre until its Immigration policies become more “flexible”, allowing parties to bring in their own arbitrators and lawyers.

But Mr Mitchell told Parliament: “Immigration makes its decision on who comes into this country as lawyers based on the position taken by the Bahamas Bar Council.

“Anyone who has an argument about which lawyers come in and come out of this country should not have an argument with the Department of Immigration but should be looking at the Bahamas Bar Council, as the professional association, about who comes in or who doesn’t come in as an attorney. That’s the issue there.”

Mrs Lashley said last week that Singapore, which has established itself as a major international arbitration centre, was aided by an open Immigration policy and appropriate work visa provisions, allowing parties to bring in their own overseas attorneys.

“For people to come here to do arbitration, for us to become known as an arbitration centre, we need to have the flexibility in our Immigration laws so someone and their disputing partner can come to the Bahamas, have their matter heard,” Mrs Lashley said.

Brian Moree senior partner of McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes has also expressed similar views to this newspaper in the past, noting that unless this nation adopts a “smart” Immigration policy that allows parties to bring their own foreign attorneys, this nation’s international arbitration centre ambitions have “no real prospects of being successful”.