Dear Editors,

If we look back over the successful and rich civilizations of this earth there is one factor that these nations practice and implement in the way they are run. This is they have a system of laws and the rule of law is in place in these societies and the law is upheld impartially for both locals and also for aliens of that society.  This fact is backed up with historical evidence, and I will give you a few examples. Babylon had the Code of Hammurabi which survives on a diorite stele to this day. The following Kingdom of Media Persia also had laws which were upheld impartially, we can see the evidence of these in the fact that when Daniel was caught praying to his God, not even King Darius who was Daniels friend could get him off, he had to go into the lion’s den. This impartially we also witnessed in the incident recorded in the Book of Ester where King Xerxes had allowed Haman to issue a decree concerning the destruction of the Jewish people. This decree was never repealed, but rather another decree was written by Mordecai that allowed the Jewish people to assemble and defend themselves against those who would chose to uphold the first decree. To this day the Jewish people celebrate Purim in remembrance of this incident.

Now in our society we too have a great document, and in each of our court rooms this document is on prominent display, in actual fact in order to provide evidence to the court people are asked to swear on this document called the Bible. So we too have a document that our wise men esteem and study, both in the church an in our court rooms, and this document if followed impartially will bring great success. However, this document calls for honesty, truthfulness, prompt justice, and impartiality in our halls of justice and also daily life. Now as I observe our court rooms, I see it there are a set of officers of the court who do not seem to have to follow any rules, nor are they held accountable by anyone. It appears that it is Ok for these court officers to lie to the court, to fabricate all sort of stories, to make up and tell wild tales so as to get guilty people freed and innocent people condemned, or get justice delayed, now the whole time they are spinning these wild tales they are charging big money for their services. In effect as I have experienced, some of them are so good at telling tales and making up stories that they confuse up the poor judges, to the point that even the poor judges of our highest court make rulings that condemn men for crimes without telling the condemned one who his accusers are or who he has committed the terrible crime against. But that is another matter.

The matter I draw my nations attention to is the fact that these officers are not regulated by anyone, well this is what the case appears to be, and I stand to be corrected. I know that they have a Bar association, but as the record will show this is more like a secret society, as there appears to be no one to impartially regulate the activities of this group of individuals that the court has licensed as its officers. In order to back up my observation I will provide my reader with an example, I will not call any names as discretion is the name of the game right now, but I have copied the Journal with a unanswered letter to all involved and if needed I can provide the full package I was presented with, that allowed me to write this document. I would encourage the parties involved to identify themselves and explain the situation on this medium if I am in anyway incorrect.

This case involves an overseas investors who came to our shores to invest his hard earned money a few years back. He had sold his business and bought a fishing charter business down in the TCI with his hard earned money. The contract he signed shows that he bought the business for 250,000US$ , the payments he made shows that he had paid a total of 224,700US$ toward the business and had a remaining 25,300US$ owing. At this point it appears that he had given the rest of the monies to a officer of our court to close up the deal for him, the receipts I saw reflect this. For some strange reason the deal had not been consummated, in speaking to him about it, the only explanation he can give me is that a “Mexican standoff” occurred between the two lawyers. With one saying well I will not give you the papers till I get the money … and … the other saying I will not give you the money till I get the papers. Due to this it appears that the whole deal fell apart and he lost his business and money, even though his lawyer was promising that he would stop the matter with an injunction, he failed to take this action as he had promised.

On the other side the lawyer representing the seller wrote explaining that his client only wanted what was due back and did not want any of the windfall profit. Now once he had got back possession of the business this noted officer of the court as the record shows quickly sold the business for a price of 130,000 with his law firm signing the contract for both buyer and seller. As the record appears to me this lawyer never advertised the business, or marketed it in any way what so ever, he simply sold a business that was worth 250,000US$ for 130,000US$ with his firm signing for both buyer and seller, and to this date our overseas investor has never got one cent from this noted law firm or even an accounting re his promised windfall. Amazing.

So to this date no straight and honest answers are forthcoming from any of the officers of our court.  

Now to the interesting part, the impossibility of  getting an straight answer from the wolves that are charged with guarding the flock of sheep from their fellow wolf pack members.

After going through this terrible ordeal at the hands of the officers of the court, and being reduced to poverty, our investor wrote the Bar Association to point out that he had not been treated according to the rules of the bar’s code of conduct. Now as he was a businessman and not a officer of the court, he used English and not legalese to explain his situation. He wrote a seven page letter that I have read that to me makes a lot of sense and I also read the provided eight sets of documents to the Bar to back up the situation, this being receipts, bills of sale, contracts, letters from the officers of the court. Now I would like to provide the public with how the Bar Association and the Integrity Commission serves and protects the members of the public:

1)      The original 7 page complaint to the bar was also copied to a few witnesses, along with 8 sets of supporting documents; invoices, receipts of payments, letters promising the windfall, all that stuff was sent in Feb 2011.

2)      The Bar responded, saying that he had basically written in the wrong format and due to this they could not answer his concerns, the Bar also explained that the investor should not copy the Governor or anyone else when he wrote them back again. Now the bar took like 5 months to get this weak response back to him. (Received by investor June 2011)

3)      The investor then got the TCI Bar’s code of conduct and wrote a  six page reply to the Bar’s letter, quoting from the bar’s very rules and showing where they had been breached, and he never copied it to the Governor as was requested. (The Investor sent this in June 2011 No answer to date!)

4)      Following this the investor figured out that the Bar had no integrity so he wrote a letter to the integrity Commission with all the above correspondence and documents attached and asked that the integrity Commission deal with the Bar Associations lack of Integrity. (The investor sent this in September 2011)

5)      The Integrity Commission headed by an officer of the court a Queen’s Council responded, that the Integrity Commission can’t deal with the lack of integrity in this matter concerning the lawyers and as I read it they have no power to deal with the Bar’s lack of integrity either, so what the hell is the point of us having an integrity commission? (The investor received this letter in October 2011)

6)      The investor responded to the Integrity Commissions letter pointing out that his complaint was not against the lawyers but against the lack of integrity of the Bar Association as he cannot get answer out of them since February of this year. (The investor sent this out November 2^nd 2011 no answer to date!)

7)      After reading all these documents and for the sake of the sanity and the well being of our nation I wrote a letter to all involved in the name of the ‘Good Shepherd’ pleading with these officers of the court to do the right thing, I even copied it to our new governor and pointed out that in my opinion we seem to have a situation that those in authority have appointed what appears to be members of the wolf pack to watch over and protect the sheep that produce for our nations well being and our Governors tax base. I say this due to the fact that our overseas investor has not been able to get an honest answer from the Bar association  to this day, and the Bar does not like it when a sheep copies the farmer complaining about wolves running lose in the meadow. In my opinion a wise farmer would not appoint wolves to be his sheep dogs, and if he did allow this, he may experience great financial difficulty and not much productivity, do you not agree?  .

Well when investors invest in this TCI jurisdiction and entrust their precious funds to those the court has empowered to deal with legal matters is it right that they get this type of service? Then after getting treated like this and they make a complaint to the Bar Association the response is, ‘your letter is not written right, and if you write us back please don’t copy anyone.’ Now, this response takes about 5 months for the Bar to prepare, and then when the investor writes back as they instructed using the words of their code there is no answer whatsoever. The integrity Commission headed by an officer of the court, a ‘Queens Council’ is then written and amazingly the same sort of answer is forth coming, it never says anything negative about one of his fellow officers, or saying that what has happened is wrong or that the Bar lacks integrity, probably because he is a member of the very wolf pack. Now I am not sure that even Satan himself could do a better job at perpetrating  injustice through the justice department that has been empowered by our Governor to protect our incoming foreign investors. Furthermore for the Bar and the Integrity Commission to give our overseas investor the complete and utter run around since February of this year as he asks for honest answers in not right at all, do you not agree with me?

Ladies and Gentlemen this is a true story and tells the tale of how dangerous it is to deal with the officers of the court in Turks and Caicos, and it also shows that there is no one overseeing these officers of the court and holding them to any standards or accountability, if I am wrong please say so, as I stand to be corrected. In my eyes and as the record seems to show, members of the wolf pack have been put in charge of keeping the very members of their wolf pack at bay, and as I see it this does not lead to profitable farming as our governor may be discovering.

I would humbly suggest that those who rule over us make some changes to the way the Bar Association operates, so that highly productive sheep once again want to come and graze on our meadows, and I would close with the words of the ‘Great Shepherd’ that come out the Book they all swear on in their court house, “…….administer justice every morning, rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire, because of the evil you have done- burn with no one to quench it”. Jeremiah 21vs12

These are the words of the ‘Great Shepherd’ that the justice department swears on, so I believe they should be heeded. I would encourage those in authority to take heed and provide prompt answers and justice for the investor in question, so that once again productive sheep will flood our meadows and fill our nation with bountiful produce, while the wolves are held at bay by the words of the ‘Great Shepherd’.

God bless Turks and Caicos Islands

I am

John Wildish