be petty and heavy-handed enforcements of the law.

When the Tall Ships departed from the Island, fishermen were barred not only from chartering their boats for the day, but from using them at all. The reason? Fishermen do not have to pay duty on their boats, but are required by their licences to use them only for commercial fishing.

Recently, there has been a crackdown on tinted windows, which according to broadcast news reports, saw a driver receive not one ticket for having tints, but four -- one for each window. The reason? Who knows.

This week, an American post card collector who has visited the Island 44 times had his cruise ship cabin raided and the post cards seized along with his computer, compact discs and some documents. The reason? Because it was believed he had not been charged Customs duty when he sold the cards to local collectors.

This newspaper has always supported the philosophy that Bermuda's citizens and visitors should uphold the Island's laws, and that the place to change them is in the legislature, not in the streets.

And it stands to reason that public servants are obliged to enforce the laws which the legislature imposes, even if they disagree with them. Failure to do so results in the collapse of rule of law and its replacement with the rule of the strongest, or the biggest bully.

But the law should also be applied with sense and judiciousness.

Pettiness, or taking extraordinary measures to enforce ordinary laws, which seems to have occurred in the above incidents, causes resentment and anger, not respect for the law.

THE ANNEXE EDT The annexe Finance Minister Eugene Cox's announcement that Bermuda is to begin moving towards allowing international companies to compete in the local market has raised a considerable amount of debate in the community.

Mr. Cox, whose integrity has never been questioned during his long career in Parliament, has promised that he has not sold Bermuda down the river in the commitments which were made to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. He should be believed. Still, it is difficult to understand why Mr. Cox is still reluctant to release the annexe to the letter Bermuda submitted to the OECD as part of its successful campaign to stay off the OECD's list of harmful tax jurisdictions.

If there is nothing to hide, what possible harm can there be in releasing the annexe?