employing non-Bermudians, a lawyer claimed yesterday.

Mark Diel was speaking as Doo-All Cleaning went on trial accused of employing three Portuguese nationals illegally.

Mr. Diel told Senior Magistrate Will Francis: "The Minister had no statutory authority....the only person or body which had that ability was the Cabinet.

"And there isn't one shred of evidence before you to show that Cabinet did exercise its power.'' And he added the document produced by Crown prosecutor Leighton Rochester -- a directive from Labour and Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness -- made clear it was the Minister, not Cabinet, which had made the decision to close the cleaners category in relation to work permits.

Mr. Diel said: "Your Worship is without doubt the master of your own court.

You can consider whether a prosecution is vexatious and dismiss it.

"There can be no doubt, in our submission, that this prosecution is vexatious -- it amounts to an abuse of the process of this court.'' Doo-All chief Andrew DeFontes admitted in Magistrates' Court that the firm had employed three non-Bermudians without having permission from the Immigration Department.

But he maintained a plea of not guilty to the offence, saying that the firm's hand was forced by Government policy after attempts to hire Bermudians failed.

Mr. Diel said: "It's this policy which brought my client to this desperate situation.

"This is a Bermudian employer saying `I am hiring every single Bermudian I can get my hands on....but I can't manage, I need a non-Bermudian and Government is saying no'.'' He added: "There is no issue that this is taking jobs away from a Bermudian or any such nonsense.

"Government says `no more' and the fact that your business and all its contracts go down the tubes is irrelevant.'' The three Portuguese -- Eduardo Bolarinho, Gabriel Bolarinho and Jose Cabral do Couto -- were seen cleaning the MarketPlace on Church Street by Immigration officials on February 15, 1995.

On May 15 in Magistrates' Court they admitted working without a work permit and were fined $800 each. Doo-All pleaded not guilty to employing them without permission from the Labour and Home Affairs Minister.

The company conceded that the three men were employed by it but Mr. Diel said his client wanted to put forward arguments for his actions.

These included the point that Doo-All had applied for permission to employ a non-Bermudian previously but had been improperly refused.

And Mr. Diel said it was his client's position that the Crown had made him commit the offence by improperly refusing his application for work permits -- but stressed he was still pleading not guilty.

But Mr. Rochester said the case was a simple matter of whether or not the employer had broken the law.

And he insisted as the employer had not obtained permission for the three men to work for him, then the firm was guilty.

He said: "We have collective Government here within the Westminster model.

All Ministers carry out policy of the Government and Government is controlled by Cabinet. Because this emanates from a Minister, it doesn't have to say `the Cabinet.' '' The former Doo-All workers -- dubbed the MarketPlace Three in court -- gave evidence for the Crown through translator Eddie DeMello that they had worked for Doo-All without work permits.

In evidence Mr. DeFontes admitted employing the men, but added that it was hard to find Bermudians to do janitorial work with its unsociable hours.

He explained that the type of work required skilled people or a skilled person who could supervise others and being short-staffed he did not have time to train locals.

He said he had applied for a work permit for a trained worker but had been turned down and was told Government policy regarding the granting of work permits had been changed.

Mr. DeFontes told the court that he had appealed the decision and had told Immigration officials that he was losing business by not having trained people on his staff.

He added that he had tried to fill in places with Bermudians through newspaper advertisements, the Government Employment Agency and released inmates from Westgate.

While some had become reliable employees, he said, others had not shown up to work or had quit soon after starting and it was beginning to effect his business.

This was why he had asked the three men to help him, despite knowing that it was illegal to do so.

And he said if he had not employed them, he would have lost more work than he already had done.

Mr. Francis said: "This is a very vexed field and the way which this case has gone down has just highlighted the seriousness of the issue.

"I have a lot of Bermudians who are coming to me saying they have no work -- then I see this. This issue is certainly not an easy one.'' And he added he would reserve judgement on the case, saying he would notify the defence and prosecution when he had made a decision.