It was disclosed during last week (‘Bar Association writes Registrar of Court, Commissioner of Police on touting’ SN, December 2) that the Guyana Bar Association had written to the Registrar of the Supreme Court and the Commissioner of Police seeking action against the use of touts to procure legal business for lawyers. Touting has long been an offence under the Legal Practitioner Act. The police made one attempt to stamp out the practice shortly after the legislation was passed when John Leonard was charged for touting as a result of a police trap.
In 1971 the Court of Appeal set aside the conviction of Leonard who was represented by the legendary J O F Haynes. Since then the police have done nothing to stamp out the practice, presumably because of the virtual impossibility of obtaining evidence of and a conviction for touting other than by entrapment, which was the method used as the basis of the charge against Leonard, which the Court of Appeal rejected. Touting flourishes also because some members of the legal profession benefit from it.
For those who are unfamiliar with the practice of touting and have never had to walk the upper portion of Croal Street and Avenue of the Republic or Charlotte and King Streets and their environs in search of a lawyer, an attempt to do so will result in an approach by one or more persons inquiring if you are looking for a lawyer. Upon an affirmative indication, you are invited to accompany the tout to his lawyer who is claimed to be the best in the city or the most reasonable in his or her fees. If more than one tout is about, a competition or even jostling takes place between the touts for your hand to literally drag you to their respective lawyer. Taxi and minibus touting is an extreme form of touting.
The raising of this issue is timely. A new batch of lawyers is being admitted to practice. Many will enter into private practice and will have to confront this scourge as I had to do immediately as I began private practice in the early 1970s. Young lawyers suffer the most as the older lawyers are better organized with the touting fraternity.
