It would appear that Fred Smith QC always seems to champion the cause of person just outside the laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas; whether it be by happenstance or not, as he seeks again to attack the sovereignty of the country.
He did this in the Jean Charles-Rony case wherein my opinion he himself was negligent on his clients behalf as he has not brought his client’s case before the proper authorities and petitioned them in a timely manner to make his client a legal resident; knowing that his client had subverted the very laws which he was then depending on to excuse his illegal acts which he had carried out for over fourteen (14) years.
Now attorney Fred Smith seeks to champion the cause of persons who have built illegally on land which may not even belong to them, again subverting the laws of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, which all other residents must abide by.

“Smith: Don’t destroy shantytowns” – The Nassau Guardian
Excerpt from this article; “The government should not move to destroy any shantytowns in The Bahamas, human rights activist and attorney Fred Smith said yesterday.
But Opposition Leader Philip Brave Davis said he believes something should be done to rectify the health and safety issue shanty towns face.
The Minnis administration has established the Shanty town Action Task Force (SATF), which seeks to deal with the regularization and eradication of shantytowns throughout The Bahamas.
The government has said it hopes to see ‘results’ from that work by this summer.
But Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes, who heads the task force, said last week that the shantytowns in Abaco won’t be torn down until the end of 2019.
He said the challenge is finding housing for the shantytown residents there.”
As the opposition, Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) sits in the political fence with the comment of “Something must be done” but never seeming to fully commit to this initiative; probably awaiting the direction of the ‘political winds’, they too must realize that just providing potable water and outside toilet facilities would not be sufficient because for all intents and purposes these settlements are illegal and to improve of them would only be to condone illegal behavior, as was done in the Jean Charles-Rony incident.
“Foulkes has stressed that the government will treat the residents as humanly as possible.
Asked his thoughts on this, Smith said, ‘it is impossible to abuse people humanely.
‘This is an abuse, to bulldoze, eradicate, destroy and annihilate communities.
‘Rather than do that, they should bring sanitation, bring building regulations, assist in rehabilitation and help create better and sanity communities, instead of ethnically cleansing them.”
This comment is just as bad or worst as “something should be done”, as it never specifies what should be done and is uses totally irresponsible language such as “ethnically cleansing”, which only serves to gamer support from person that really do not wish to see the problem solved – because there is a problem.
Both parties, the Free National Movement (FNM) and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) can take credit for creating this problem, as these communities we allowed to grow and fester under both governments; with very little to nothing being done to stop the illegal building of these communities, so first we should begin by viewing them as such; illegal buildings and begin from here as we assess how to treat them and also who actually owns these properties anyway?
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