The new volumes of law books for the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, which were printed in South Africa, are laced with errors, creating mounting frustrations for lawyers and other jurists.
The set of books costs $3,000 and is proving to be disappointing for many in the legal profession. The total cost of the law revision exercise was $857,119, according to an official in the office of the Attorney General.
Printed in the books is a Constitution of The Bahamas which reflects the constitutional amendments defeated in the referendum in 2002.
Attorney General Alfred Sears said Friday that he has asked the director of legal affairs to “look into the matter” and report back to him.
“I’ve heard of errors,” admitted Minister Sears, who added that he did not know specifics. “In anything there is likely to be errors, especially something as massive as this.”
The new volumes contain a complete listing of statute laws governing The Bahamas.
Attorney Lester Mortimer Jr. a partner at Callender’s and Co. said in an interview with the Bahama Journal that he is very disappointed that the nation’s law books contain such glaring inaccuracies.
“To my understanding those provisions were inserted [in the law books] in anticipation that the referendum would have passed,” Mr. Mortimer said. “We all know that the referendum questions were defeated, each and every one, and those purported amendments which were inserted ought not to have been inserted.
“I’m disappointed that given the delay in publishing the books we could not have corrected those items.”
Director of Legal Affairs Rhonda Bain said the release of the new volume of statutes was significantly behind schedule so the law books were printed with an addendum called a corieagenda specifying that the provisions related to the referendum should be ignored.
Ms. Bain indicated that the defeated constitutional amendments were perhaps included in the volumes because they were Acts already passed by parliament. But to take effect, they needed approval by a national referendum.
Some attorneys are questioning whether the addendum can be used to negate provisions of the country’s laws or if legislative action should be taken to remove the provisions from the law books.
A further complication is that the corieagenda itself may contain deficiencies, attorney Michael Scott said.
“I don’t know that the wording of the corieagenda is accurate,” Mr. Scott said. “The other thing is that the corieagenda itself isn’t appropriately authenticated meaning there isn’t an LRO authentication number at the bottom of the corieadgenda so there is some suggestion that the corieagenda may not represent an accurate reflection of the law to the extent that it comments on the erroneous record of the chapter dealing with the constitution.”
Queen’s counsel Henry Bostwick has another opinion on how the referendum related provisions came to be included in the volume.
“It must have been a printing error,” he said.
Former Attorney General Carl Bethel told the Journal that he could not speak to the issue.
Meanwhile, many lawyers awaiting their new volumes are expressing disappointment regarding the errors.
One attorney thought it was presumptions that any of the proposed constitutional amendments would appear in the books.
Among those proposed amendments were provisions to create a Teaching Service Commission; an independent parliamentary commissioner; an independent boundaries commission; a provision to extend the retirement age of judges and another to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of gender.
The new books are being added to what the present attorney general has admitted is an already inefficient justice system, with a Supreme Court that has a debilitating backlog of court cases that hinder reasonably early court dates.
By Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
