<B>by Anil GAYAN</B>

You have sought the views of the legal profession on the decision of the government announced in the Budget in respect of foreign law firms being entitled to set up their practice in Mauritius. It is further proposed to amend the Law Practitioners Act for this purpose.

While I would like to believe that the government being buffeted by the forces of globalisation and liberalisation, would be in a position to resist pressure, I am at a loss to understand the need and the haste to make such changes at this stage.

You may be aware that this is certainly not a new problem. In the past, at least when I was the chairman of the Bar Council, I resisted all pressure especially as the attempt to open up our legal profession was unbridled and unilateral.

What is being proposed is tantamount to a ?deculottage? in the face of the big movers at the World Trade Organization.

No other country so far is contemplating what your government is. It seems that decisions are being imposed without the government being able to at least take time to consider and to have the courage to say ?no?. It reminds one of the ?ex-post facto? referred to so many times in the Sithanen Budget.

Although I am aware of the need to take account of the opening of services? sectors around the world, I am also alive to the resistance being put up for this by valiant countries like India and Brazil. Mauritius should listen more to the major developing countries before agreeing to a sell-out.

What is being proposed can only be acceptable if it is done on a basis of reciprocity or when all countries in the world agree to total freedom of movement of lawyers without any restriction to start a practice anywhere.

Sovereignty is a treasure that should not be bargained away like the Chagos Archipelago was in the mid 1960s. It is urgent that government refrains from doing unforeseeable damage to a sector which is in the throes of many difficulties.

Let us start rather by applying equality of opportunity in Mauritius by opening all legal services under the direct and indirect control of government by tendering them out. Let us open the closed suffocating official legal profession first.