The idea that people involved in fact-finding missions or objective studies on issues should have no opinions of their own is clearly laughable.

It is only human, whether a person is a lawyer, a journalist, a civil servant or anything else, to have views and opinions based on the available facts. Indeed, it would be dangerous to assign a study to someone who has no opinions on anything. That would suggest a lack of critical judgment that would be far more damaging.

But anyone engaged in a fact-finding study needs to strive for objectivity, and to the extent that it is possible, put their opinions and views on the backburner.

This is where Phillip Perinchief, a senior Crown counsel in the Attorney General?s chambers who has been assigned as an ex officio legal advisor to the Bermuda Independence Commission, went wrong last week when he spoke at a forum at the Bermuda Institute.

Anyone who has followed Bermuda politics in the last 30 years in Bermuda knows that Mr. Perinchief has strong political opinions. In 1998, he ran as a candidate in the General Election on an Independence platform.

For that reason, there were some raised eyebrows when he was assigned to the BIC as a legal advisor along with former Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans, whose own support for Independence is well known.

But Premier Alex Scott gave assurances at the time that both lawyers were well equipped to present all sides of the case, as indeed lawyers should be able to do.

According to BIC chairman Bishop Vernon Lambe, Mr. Perinchief has done just that as the Commission has been investigating the issue and drafting its report. But Mr. Perinchief then gave a speech strongly in favour of Independence when he accompanied members of the UN Decolonisation Committee to a forum at the Bermuda Institute.

Mr. Perinchief has since said that he gave the speech not as an advisor to the Committee but as a private citizen, but he gave no such indication at the time, and he previously told that all he did was pass on information that he had learned while working with the Commission.

Mr. Perinchief cannot have it both ways. He should not, either as a Commission advisor or as a civil servant, give public views on an issue of vital political importance before any decision has been made. And he must surely remember that his private and public roles are inextricably entwined when he speaks in public.

Mr. Scott has rightly been at pains to say that the BIC is non-partisan and has been commissioned to lay out the facts on Independence; not to come to any conclusions on whether Bermuda should opt for full sovereignty to remain as a British Overseas Territory.

With slightly less success, he has tried to dampen partisan debate on the subject of Independence, saying it would be wrong to do so until the report has been released.

All of this is contingent on the BIC report being as objective as possible, and that requires that the Commissioners and their advisors reserve judgment on which way Bermuda should turn. Bishop Lambe says Mr. Perinchief has done that, and there is no reason not to believe him, not least because he is, after all, a churchman.

But it is inevitable that Mr. Perinchief?s statements will have sown seeds of doubt and will have damaged the credibility of the Commission. If the BIC is to retain its integrity, Mr. Perinchief should apologise, something he has been loath to do so far.