COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN

LEGAL LITERATURE:
A Survey

Senator The Hon. Velma Newton

Professor of Law Librarianship
University of the West Indies
Barbados

Definition Of Commonwealth Caribbean

States and dependencies are:

Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda
The Bahamas Barbados
Belize Bermuda
Brit. Virgin Islands Cayman Islands
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana Jamaica
Montserrat
St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the
Grenadines
Turks and Caicos Is.
Trinidad and Tobago

 Uniting factors
Most were British colonies at some point in their history
Similar legal system common law to which a body of statute law has
been added
Most are members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market
established in 1973.
Exceptions
St. Lucia law based on Code Quebecois to which English statute law
has been added
Guyana land law based on the Roman-Dutch system.

Main Forms of Legal Literature

Legislation
Court decisions some reported many not
Periodicals (during last part of twentieth
century
Casebooks, text books and treatises
No form books, no legal encyclopaedias,
no comprehensive digests

FINDING INFORMATION

Where can information be found?

Bibliographies
Library holdings
Faculty of Law Library, Univ. of the West Indies
Institute of Jamaica
Harvard University Library
Some univ. libraries in Florida
New York Public Library
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London Univ.
Bodlean Library, Oxford University
Library of Congress
Publishers catalogues (Cavendish, OUP, Caribbean Law Publ,
Univ. of West Indies Press, Gaunts)

LEGISLATION
Relatively few revised editions of laws pre-twentieth
century
Since the 1970s, most in looseleaf format
St. Lucia no revision since 1957 until this year
St.Kitts and Nevis no revision since 1961.
Guyana last official revision published in 1971 only two
or three supplements published since then.

Updating and Subscriptions

Some territories publish annual updating volumes.
Faculty of Law collects and binds all slip laws into annual
volumes
Sources of legislation -Mainly available on subscription.
Government Printing Offices for subscriptions to Official
Gazettes to which laws are published as supplements.
Office of Attorneys-General for revised editions of laws
Now some slip laws and constitutions available on government
websites The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia.
Constitutions also published on websites with constitutions of
other countries
Laws on CD ROM- Anguilla, Barbados, The Bahamas, Belize.

Law Reporting History

Jamaica has longest history first vol. Published in 1774,long gap

between 1978 and 1994
Followed by British Guiana (now Guyana) (1856-1965;1973-74) and
then by Trinidad and Tobago (1913-1974)
During 1970s and 1980s Barbados and Cayman Islands only
Governments to finance law reporting and West Indian Reports only
regional series being published on a regular basis
Information in Commonwealth Caribbean Patchett and Jenkins and
Newton bibliographies

Law Reporting Current

West Indian Reports (1958-) Butterworths

Cayman Islands Law Reports (1952-)
Caribbean Law Publishers
Jamaica Law Reports, 1990s
Eastern Caribbean Law Reports (1996 vol. Publ.
in 2003)
3 vols. of Trinidad and Tobago Supreme Court
Reports ( 199095)
Barbados Law Reports (1994 last vol.) Publ.
series not officially abandoned

INFORMAL LAW REPORTING Hardcopy

Format
This has consisted mainly of publishing in the
Official Gazette, in periodicals and in casebooks.
Official Gazette publishing started in the nineteenth
century and has continued sporadically in some
territories, eg. Belize, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis.
Only text of judgments included.
Publishing in periodicals The Lawyer, Cayman
Islands Law Bulletin, Caribbean Law and Business,
Caribbean Law Bulletin. Most recent West Indian
Lawyer, 2004

Informal Law Reporting Electronic

Format (1)
Quicklaw Around mid 1990s added cases from OECS,
Guyana, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and
Industrial Court of Trinidad to its databank
Following territories now publish cases on websites:
Barbados (
www.barbados.gov.bb/attorneygeneral/lawLibrary)
Belize (www.Belizelaw.org/supremecourt/judge)
Jamaica (www.sc.gov.jm/judgments)
OECS (www.ecsupremecourt.org)
Trinidad and Tobago (www.lawcourts.org/library)

Electronic Publishing (2)

CARILAW:Caribbean Law Online
Began 2001 with U.S. AID funding - Objective to digitize the
nearly 20,000 cases in the Faculty of Law Librarys collection
of cyclostyled judgments. Process scanning or typing where
scanning is impossible, first and final editing, adding
headnotes, publishing on website.
Other components : treaties (both bilateral and multilateral)
and legislation, especially dealing with trade and industry)
Objective:
To provide access to the collection which is the best in the
region to scholars and others interested in legal research and to
the Caribbean Court of Justice expected to commence in late
2004.

CariLaw Problems
Finding suitable search engine First used
SINO, now InMagic
Search engine working well
Problems relate to finding accurate editors, and
law students or librarians with legal background
to assist with case digesting
Adding data fast enough a major challenge
Sustainability Charging users outside Faculty
of Law for use, University support
CariLaw http://carilaw.cavehill.uwi.edu

CariLaw Success
Over 14,000 cases online (from 1955 to
2000)
About 70 treaties
About 15 items of legislation, although
several items have been completed. They
are now to be final edited and added.
Plans to add WILIP indexes to site in
progress

SECONDARY LEGAL
PUBLISHING
No legal encyclopaedias or digests reliance is on U.K.
publications such as The Digest and Halsburys Laws.
Periodicals A few have been published, mainly in the
twentieth century but with many gaps and short-lived.
Currently main periodicals being published are Caribbean
Law Review (1991-) Caribbean Law Bulletin (1995-) West
Indian Law Journal (1970s-); West Indian Lawyer (2004 -)
Articles on aspects of Commonwealth Caribbean law also
published mainly in journals such as the Anglo-American Law
Review,Modern law Review, Law Quarterly Review, Oxford
Journal of Legal Studies.

TEXTBOOKS AND CASEBOOKS

Most information on the law of the Commonwealth
Caribbean for eighteenth century onward found in:
official reports
general works on the British Empire
general histories of the various colonies
Most outstanding and informative work on law and
legal system of the region was the Dwarris
Reports on the Administration of Civil and Criminal
Justice in the West Indies published in London
between in 1826-32.

TWENTIETH CENTURY LEGAL

PUBLISHING
Early to mid twentieth century legal
information in a number of books on
constitutional history as the period
witnessed many proposals for changes in
the constitutional status of the colonies.
Also a number of monographs and articles
on aspects of the law of British Guiana,
many published in Guyanese journal
Temehri.

1940s-1970

Increasing number of official reports, articles and monographs by

mid 20th century most important report of the time the Moyne
Commission report of 1945.
The Federation (1957-1962), movement for independence of
several territories and the movement for establishment of the
Faculty of Law all generated discussion and writings, mainly articles
Period 1950-70 legal and quasi-legal monographs included works
by knowles on trade union development and industrial relations in
the West Indies; Ringel on law relation to arrests, searches and
confessions, Number of theses by Caribbean scholars studying in
the U.K. (Barnett, Liverpool, Watkins, Rattray, Herbert, Wills).
Landmark publication Law in the West Indies: some recent trends,
1966 (BIICL) review of the law in many areas and
recommendations for changes. Many of the changes recommended
were later made.

Establishment of West Indian

System of Legal Education

West Indian System of legal education established established in 1970

comprising Faculty of Law at Univ. of the West Indies for academic stage
(the LL.B.) and law schools in Trinidad and Jamaica for the professional
stage (Legal education certificate) . At first not much writing as the Faculty
of Law Library was being established, but since then numerous articles and
books in many areas of law published by Faculty of Law teaching staff.

Names such as Carnegie on constitutional law and contract, Patchett on

the reception of law, Alexis on various aspects of constitutional law;
Liverpool on the Civil Code of St. Lucia and real property, Menon on
aspects of criminal and international law, Okpaluba on aspects of labour
law, Bland on conflict of laws and trusts.

By the end of the 1980s many of the teaching staff of the Faculty were
making sterling contribution to the body of legal writing on the region, but
mainly through article and not book publishing. Few avenues for book
publishing for or in the region largely because of perceived small market for
scholarly legal works.

1990s

Decade of the nineties witnessed publication of many casebooks and texts

designed for courses offered in the Faculty

Three major publishers are the University of the West Indies Press,
Cavendish and Caribbean law Publishers. Early 1990s Faculty of Law
Library even assisted in the effort by publishing a few texts, the most
notable of which was Margaret DeMerieuxs work on Commonwealth
Caribbean Bills of Rights.

Teaching staff of the Faculty have made good use of its Caribbean
resources to publish articles, student texts and casebooks in constitutional
law, contract, aspects of company law and civil procedure, legal systems,
insurance, offshore law, real property, tort and trusts.

Current situation
Teaching staff of the Law Schools in Trinidad and Tobago and
Jamaica have been less prolific - main texts in inheritance and
succession, company law and criminal practice and procedure
and on the legal profession .
Legal researchers from outside the region are also producing,
but one of the main challenges they would face is in accessing
certain categories of legal materials e.g. government reports,
legislation, some case law , but as more and more use is being
made of the Internet for publication purposes it will be easier
to access West Indian legal materials.

Current Challenges
Still great reliance on U.K. texts in some areas of law, both as
required and recommended reading.
The challenge of this decade is to reduce this dependence.
Increase the range of materials available on CARILAW