Basseterre, St. Kitts, May 07, 2010 (SKNIS): A large section of the outdated language in the law books of St. Christopher and Nevis has been updated to minimize ambiguity and raise understanding for persons not trained in the legal profession.
Crown Counsel Karen Hughes told SKNIS as she delivered the new documents for purchase by the public, that the upgrade was part of the law revision process the last of which occured in 1961.
Ms Hughes said the rationale for the revision was three fold, the priority being the compilation of the laws which were somewhat fragmented. “As time passes and changes occur one may have to amend a particular provision that’s in the law. A situation that was not originally contemplated in the parent act may have to be addressed. Many changes would have unfolded since 1961. What resulted was that the law wound up being fragmented. All these different pieces of legislation made it very difficult to source a complete picture of the law.”
As it relates to the laws guiding national elections for example, Ms Hughes said, “that particular act had been amended so many times that it was quite a task compiling every existing piece of legislation which pertained to that activity in one place. The Law Revision has addressed that.”
Apart from the issues of compilation and language, consideration was also given to the need to remove items that were simply no longer relevant. Case in point provided by Hughes was a law which referred to a horse and buggy, which dated as far back as the 19th century.
As far as modernizing the language of the laws Hughes said it was still not perfect but had come a long way in clarifying the meaning of phrases contained in the law by the use of more “layman friendly” language. Additionally, she explained the kind of language used in the past often made sentences very lengthy, ambiguous and confusing for the most part. The revision sought to eliminate the worst instances of such language.
Other items that were removed from the books included laws that were now considered defunct, for example those in relation to the sugar industry and laws regarding items such as government loans which had already been repaid and are no longer relevant.
The laws are now available in thirteen volumes hard copy and there are plans to have them available electronically on CD Rom as well as digitally online.
The new version of the laws that have been prepared have been presented in a loose- leaf version which allows amendments to the laws to be inserted in the appropriate section to avoid the laws becoming fragmented in the future.
Anyone interested in researching the contents of the law can visit the High Court Registry in St. Kitts or Nevis. Those desiring to get copies of a particular law can purchase them at SKNIS, Government Headquarters in St. Kitts at a fee of 50 cents per page. However for copyright purposes, no request can be made to purchase any of the volumes in their entirety.
The laws are currently published by the firm Eyrie and Spottiswood.
