For Fiji's Legal

A New Order For Fiji's Legal Profession

From a Suva Correspondent Maybe no one was really in

erested in wordy exchanges with

mother session due on June 22, ir perhaps members were too >usy clearing decks for action at he constitutional conference in

xmdon in July.

iITHATEVER the reason, the early Ft June meeting of the Fiji Legis itive Council was one of the shortest, nd friendliest, on record. It lasted our hours.

In that time the council polished ff 10 bills and a score of motions onnected with finance, and only with ne bill was there anything like a ebate. And that was more like a ne-man band.

The event was the Legal Prac tioners Bill, which will amend the iw relating to lawyers—of which the Colony has more than its share. It rill stop up a few gaps through which ny lawyer with dishonest intentions ould wriggle with ease, and it also ffurbishes the Fiji Law Society [hich, until now, hasn’t been the ower in the profession it should be.

Under the new law, every legal ractitioner in Fiji will have to join le Law Society. The society will have charter and the legal machinery to isbar, suspend or otherwise punish ny lawyer bending the ethics of the rpfession.

The lawyers themselves, both the ix who are among the unofficial mem ers, and the other members of the ,aw Society, vetted the bill before the ouncil handled it.

But one member, a lawyer, Mr. . M. Koya, declared his dissatisfae on with much of it. He said he idn’t like the business of a lawyer eing suspended until accusations of nprofessional conduct had been in estigated and proved or cleared.

“Who’s going to look after his lients while he is suspended?” Mr. loya wanted to know.

He didn’t like the clause which lade it compulsory for newly-qualified ractitioners to acquire practical ex erience at the elbow of a senior be 3re being allowed to practise in the igh courts.

And he didn’t like the clause which ays applications for admissions have

jto be made by petition to the Chief [justice, who will be supplied by the f Law Society Council with a con fidential report of the new man’s suit

lability.

Mr. Koya said: “We are not living ►Jn an Iron Curtain country that we >uld be treated in this way.”

He added that people might say [ .at the existing lawyers were trying : o bring in a “closed shop” by re stricting intake.

No one else criticised the bill, and New Zealand-trained lawyer Acting Attorney-General Mr. Don McLoughlin had an easy task to get the measure through.

He said that suspension of a lawyer accused of malpractices was a sure way of protecting the clients against further malpractices. The bill was not only for the benefit of legal prac titioners, but for the public.

So far as the “Iron Curtain” sug gestion was concerned, the substance of an adverse report would be made known to the lawyer concerned, Mr, McLoughlin said.

Mr. McLoughlin complained that as lawyers had been asked to make rep resentations about the bill before it reached the council, he thought Mr.

Koya could have voiced his critic isms then.

Much Business Done

Another member, Mr. R. A.

Kearsley, also a lawyer, thought Mr.

Koya in opposing the bill in its present form was seeking to overrule the Law Society which had approved the bill.

Mr. Koya retorted, quite rightly, that a decision on the bill was a matter for the council, not the Law Society.

And the bill went through, together vith all the other nine.

Some were amending measures for )bscure little laws like the Diplomatic J rivileges Ordinance or the Lautoka electricity Ordinance. There was a fill to amend the Charity Trusts Ord nance to make life harder for the :rooks who skin the public under the jenevolent guise of charity.

There was also a bill to repeal the detected Industries Ordinance and mother to amend the Traffic Ordin mce 1965, which was only approved it the last meeting and is not yet on he Statute Book. But somebody bought the fines were too small, and he new bill will remedy that.

All the bills went through without my opposition or unnecessary chatter, nd obviously the members had serious hings on their mind now that Fiji’s •olitical future is soon to be decided n London.