Topic: Lawyers bill

The final meeting of the 2013-2017 Legislative Assembly may ultimately be remembered for its failure to approve regulatory changes to the Cayman Islands legal profession, but lawmakers approved more than three dozen new laws or changes to existing legislation.

A snap public meeting has been called for Thursday night over the controversial Legal Practitioners Bill, just days before the legislation was expected to come before parliament for a vote. Financial Services Minister Wayne Panton said the Progressives-led government still expects to bring the amendment bill for a vote during the current meeting of the Legislative Assembly.

More than 75 percent of the members of Cayman’s two major lawyers associations urged lawmakers this week to approve the Legal Practitioners Bill, seeking to update a regulatory code for the legal profession that dates to the 1960s. The Cayman Islands Law Society said Wednesday that more than 80 percent of its members back the legislation.

There is significant opposition to the government’s latest attempt to amend working rules for local lawyers, but it is being stifled due to fear, Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush said this week. Mr. Bush said a number of Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly members had received private communications from lawyers who oppose the 126-page amended draft of the Legal Practitioners Bill.

Cayman Islands lawmakers are set to review and approve an unprecedented number of bills in the Legislative Assembly meeting that begins Tuesday, some of which involve complex, long-standing issues that have been before parliament for more than a decade.