Tea Leaks by Talkers

- Friday, March 6, 2015 - 10 years ago No Comments 8,193 Views

Lawyers circle I

Leak in! Circular letter N. 5/2015 from the Lawyers Association (AAM) was spammed to all its 492 members to announce among other things the newcomers to the legal profession. According to the letter, dated Feb 25, 2015, we have two new full practitioners (bravo!) and 14 new interns (break a leg, guys!). The new interns have all passed the admission exam and they all have their own “patrons” – veteran lawyers – that will mentor the aspiring barristers for the duration of the 2 years stint until they can independently practice the noble profession.

Lawyers circle II

One particular case, the first newly registered lawyer mentioned in the letter, though, sounds intriguing. We are no legal experts but we can read and, especially, read between the lines – it’s kind of our job description. So this new legal practitioner was accepted by the association headed by Mr Jorge Neto Valente under a certain “provisional norm” approved in last year’s General Assembly, which allegedly nobody was allowed to examine, even if someone asked for it. And Talkers knows that someone did… So the big question is: what is in this provisional norm? Was it transcribed into the proceedings of the said meeting?

Lawyers circle III

What’s even stranger is that the newly registered member of the bar has a “patron”, who in turn is a partner at a well-known law firm. First we thought, well maybe it’s a mistake, a typo, and in the end he/she is an intern, hence the patron. But if he/she’s an intern why enact the “provisional norm” then? We just couldn’t believe Mr Valente, famous for his attention to detail, would overlook such a gross error. So, we went on to AAM’s website to fact-check. There, we came quickly to the conclusion that there was no mistake. He/she is indeed one of the newest fully-fledged lawyers in town. To be continued…

Coloane hustle

A lady from the ever-serving ILCM concern group is alerting people to a possible “mal-function” of flashing police speed cameras in Coloane, ongoing since mid-January. Apparently she got 5 or 6 speeding fines while driving as slow as a rickshaw. She’s never had a speeding ticket in over 10 years driving to and from the remote island and is taking the case up with the police in Taipa, who are giving her a hard time. But she warns us fellow drivers not to pay for these kinds of tickets carelessly. Talkers is wondering if this is only a case of mal-functioning or… a CNY hustle by the blue street men. Because, yeah, we too got the flashes lately. And not exactly on the Oscars stage 😉

Squeeze in, cough!

Compared to Hong Kong and Singapore, which have population densities of 6,571 and 7,618 per square kilometer of land, Macau, believe it or not, squeezes 21,190 per sqkm. We also get over 31 million visitors a year. The impact of human activity on this teeny-tiny land is huge. No wonder pollution, motor vehicle density, garbage and respiratory diseases are all on the rise. In Macau more than LOL, people are COL…