COMMENTARY

A Response to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Strategy Paper

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Skip, hop and a click; legal reforms and other related matters

Legal reforms, accessible justice in an ideal world would be a reflection of good and accountable governance with the onus resting as heavily on the individual as expectations of the same in progressive leaders. The epoch of globalisation has woven a web as swiftly as the click of a mouse, more certainly faster than the will of judicial reforms can match its pace.

Jack Straw notes ‘Domestic and international policy are becoming more intertwined as a result of global travel or technological advance. As a consequence, what happens abroad is of more immediate concern for all of us.’ Full and meaningful commitment best would cast the legal net of international obligation on a search wide enough not only to react for resolve but by means which act on accountability to deter a proliferation of consequential injustices on all of us.

As a mother of three children bearing a responsibility in a future for them that includes a belief in the system. I ask regrettably, where was and where is the good governance?

Despite a non-dissipation order, Mareva Injunction, Anton Pillar Order, World-wide Asset Injunction Order one individual tacitly assisted by the system has made a mockery of it, remains circumvent to it, the rule of law and his parental obligations. What had been a matter of one jurisdiction has crossed three. While noted as a Financial Trader with fellow Rotarians guided by their motto ‘Service above Self.’ maintenance arrears to date remain unaccounted to.

For the UK Government, where is the good governance in ‘A Partnership for Progress and Prosperity’ with your Overseas Territories dependent through the sovereign laws crafted more precisely by geography impeding and obstructing the very laws the UK DFID Good Governance Fund is reforming efforts to ensure the OT’s comply with international standards the UK expect in their constitutional relationship, which ultimately the UK has reserve powers for if those principles become compromised.

Where are the Overseas Territories on any international obligations to children? As recorded in the UK Parliamentary Hansard June 17/03, Mr. Lammy of the Department of Constitutional Affairs accounted report is, not much, the Turks and Caicos not even on the list.

Under the Permanent Bureau in The Hague it appears that some good governance through Canadian representatives working on draft legislation for ‘The International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance’ could shed some light on the Canadian Department of International Development prioritising program funding for a Sports Officer Intern promoting self esteem among young children in the UK tax haven of Turks and Caicos one of whose key stumbling blocks for legislating the recovery of maintenance would be the logistics requiring training and staffing enforcement offices.

An article appearing in the Turks and Caicos Free Press (Sept. 12/03 pg. 7) just below the article featuring the backgammon participants rewarded with free beer (including the debtor flanked by his lawyer and other possible notables) may crystallise the issue for some of us.

Is it also good governance when Canada not only has or is financing the Caribbean Bank but allows it’s own banks, such as RBC to staff a former lawyer and partner of a high profile offshore law firm that until recently had been home to the Honorary Consulate for Canada both promoting step by step tax strategies and expatriation under the protection of our Charter of Rights? Healthy tax competition? Is this the checks and balances for the stakeholders in the system? Is this the level playing field for agencies like REMO and FRO who are mandated to facilitate the international process? Where are the red flags?

Will the architects of the PNP Governments of the Turks and Caicos Islands vision for the future account to the Constitutional Review Body 2002, Section 7.3 recommending support for a family court system as the Hon. Michael E. Misick promises to ‘review a number of priority policies and legislative reform’ with ‘a commitment to regional and international obligations?’ As a leader in development in the Caribbean why are your children lining up for educational facilities that lack insufficiently of books and desks?

What in your ‘Open Arms Policy’ constitutes the mandatory ‘evidence of good character’ in considering investment/ retirement/resident applications? Faxed inquires to your immigration official as to the whereabouts of an absconding father whom was in contempt stated that ‘there was no such person’. Subsequent disclosure indicated otherwise. Is this the good will in men and women that the TC has room for?

Research found through a legislative committee on the 2000 Law in Jersey that ‘some individuals were moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to avoid their responsibilities and were assisted in doing so because enforcement procedures were difficult and cumbersome.’ The committees first aim was ‘to ensure that no parent who had been ordered to pay maintenance should be able to use the fact of residence in Jersey as a shield from his or her obligations,’ concluding their overall objective that sought “no person who is legally obliged to maintain his/her spouse, partner or child, can regard Jersey as a safe haven for avoiding that obligation and that a person living in Jersey who is entitled to maintenance from a person living elsewhere is provided by law with the best possible opportunity to enforce that right.’

Through governing bodies such as ‘The Overseas Territories Consultative Council’ committing to instrumental reforms such as ‘International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance’ working strategies can bring meaningful and accountable law for a global world. It would be of consequential compromise otherwise, to all leaders, politicians, bankers, lawyers, real estate agents, right down to the smallest and most important of stakeholders who stand to inherit keys in a future dependent through accountability to which those reforms will pass.

A charitable trust administered through the Ashcroft School Trust supported by the Michael A. Ashcroft Foundation in the Turks and Caicos Islands motto advocates ‘The young of today are the pillars of tomorrow.’ Please initiate your strategies, enforce what is law and stand up for the necessary legislation to enact reform. It all matters to each and every one of us.

A Canadian Mom

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