Cayman Islands Law Courts launch new website
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Law Courts launched a redesigned and more user-friendly website this morning, Tuesday 1 October. Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale said that open justice is a fundamental principle in democracies around the world and is no less so for Cayman’s courts. “Our Law Courts must, as we are now doing, consistently seek to upgrade tools, such as our website, which we use to serve customers at increasingly higher standards,” she said.
The CILC has expanded its existing relationship with long-time strategic partner, vLex, which is an online platform that provides access to the Cayman Islands Law Reports as well as law reports from other jurisdictions, to make searching for unreported and reported Cayman Islands judgments easier.
vLex has offered a free 30-day trial for new and existing subscribers, whereby local practitioners and members of the Cayman Islands public can access all vLex products. Existing subscribers of the judicial.ky portal will be emailed new login details without the need to re-register. New subscribers will be able to register directly on the new website from today, 1 October.
For the relaunch of the website, the took users to a placeholder page from 5pm Monday until the new site appeared this morning, planned to coincide with a typically non-peak period.
Court Administrator Christina McTaggart explained, “We are fully cognizant that persons across multiple jurisdictions and time zones access the Law Courts website daily and, therefore, we are aiming to move from the downtime period into the relaunch as seamlessly as possible.”
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Category: Courts
@1:33 p.m. Thank you for the compliments. Also for the constructive criticism. Both well received.
I believe you missed the compliments in my comment, if you are the original poster🙂.
My grammatical delivery may not come across to you but it is evident you have gotten the gist by your compliments. Or maybe because you do not entirely agree with my comment. In grammar and English (and the law) there are more than one way of writing grammar, and expressing speech. That is the beauty of the English language. Read the other comments, and listen around as others speak. Maybe read my comment over…slower🙂. That may help realize the difference in grammatical and speech delivery. Sorry but the fact that you have used “its” instead of “it’s” in your first sentence, your second sentence begins with a common/lower case letter and the word “cant” is used instead of “can’t” is evident of spelling and punctuation errors🙂. Improper grammar. Perhaps if you studied law and an English major yet a Caymanian it all would make sense 🙂🇰🇾⚖️. Hopefully you have the same comment on some of the other comments with “grammatical” and “speech” deliveries too😉 🙂💪🇰🇾⚖️. Love back to you, bredren.🙂
@3:17 p.m.
Sensible, sound comments. Well thought out and composed. I so enjoyed the read, I read three times🙂.
Two things to add.
(1) The CJ can say anything and everything each year with the Grand Court opening. Governments sitting at the time are who endeavours to finance what the CJ knows is needed. Agreeably this evidently has not been done how and as hoped by the Judicial Head(s) for whatever reason we do not know. His-now-her hands have been and are tied otherwise. All Departments have their budgets and can only hope they can get the agreement of funds, I like to think. No its, buts or otherwise about this on improving the jurisdiction’s Judicial needs. Agreeably we need a brand new court house, and satellite offices a couple days of the week. Do we have enough commercial crimes to allocate a court specifically for such? Government/law enforcement may know but possibly not. Not where the Criminal and Civil Courts can handle the case loads.🤷
(2) The Cayman Islands cannot possibly compare to Hong Kong and Singapore. I cannot see how. Not in size,services nor resources. It is entertaining to hope so but I just cannot see where the comparison is expected.
That the Government and Min. Ebanks have recently opened a new office in Asia tells that investors are not dwindling on the sidelines of the Cayman Islands but still “coming ashore” 🙂.
Ms. Bryan love your attitude, but its not enough. your ideas and thoughts are spot on but your grammatical delivery needs work. Yes you can work on perfecting this, and your speech will also improve. As i don’t know you cant talk to you personally but I offer what I believe is constructive thoughts.
one Love Sistren
While it’s encouraging to see the Cayman Islands Government investing in a redesigned court website, there’s a more pressing issue that demands attention: the establishment of a new commercial court for the Financial Services Division, ideally situated in Camana Bay. Financial services are the backbone of our economy, and a modern, well-resourced court system is essential for resolving disputes and maintaining the confidence of international investors.
Currently, our court facilities do not match the standards set by leading jurisdictions like Hong Kong and Singapore. These countries have heavily invested in their legal infrastructures, enhancing their appeal to global financial markets. Singapore, in particular, is actively seeking to attract financial services work that has traditionally come to the Cayman Islands. Without comparable advancements, we risk losing our competitive edge and the economic benefits that come with it.
The importance of upgrading our court system isn’t a new concern. Each year, the Chief Justice emphasizes this need during the opening of the courts, urging the government to take action. Yet, successive administrations have overlooked these calls, possibly because the benefits aren’t immediately visible in terms of votes or political gain. However, the long-term implications for our economy are significant.
Investing in a state-of-the-art commercial court is not just about infrastructure—it’s about signaling to the world that the Cayman Islands is committed to upholding the highest standards of legal excellence. It’s about ensuring that our financial services sector remains robust, competitive, and capable of fostering growth for years to come.
Why on Earth would anyone downvote this? It seems eminently sensible.
For as long as I can remember, every time this eminently sensible position has been argued, and by whomever, the response has always been some variety of ‘they can do night courts!’, ‘use the town hall!’, ‘decriminalise things!’, etc. Missing the point entirely, which is that financial services pays for most of the party here. And a large part of financial services is litigation. Which means a modern, purpose-built, high-quality court estate is an essential part of Cayman’s strategic economic goal of gaining and keeping as much financial services business as possible.
The US Supreme Court is far larger than it needed to be when it was built, but there was a vision to make a statement about its independence and coequality with the other branches of government. The building reflects the organising principles and rules of the country. It reflects the status and importance of the court inside it. It is a fittingly grand place for the absolute last word in US law to be argued and pronounced. There is no corresponding vision here to align our court infrastructure with the quality of businesspeople and professionals coming here to use our courts. We are currently making a bad impression on every single one of them. Well, the most recent Chief Justice had the vision, and could not in 25 years make it happen.
Jurisdiction after jurisdiction after jurisdiction has invested in top of the line court facilities and seen dividends. Cayman just refuses to do it because there are no votes in it. The plans already exist, in fact. There is supposed to be a five-storey main building constructed where the current parking lot is, connecting the Court House and the Old Scotiabank Building. But again, no votes. The politicians and civil servants upgraded their own accommodation, renovating Parliament over 20 years ago and finishing the current Government Administration Building 15 years ago. They love showing off both to visitors and using them to advantage in various ways. But they will not allow the Judiciary and all those involved in litigation here to do the same.
Probably the suggestion to move it to Camana Bay getting the downvotes. – Personally I prefer the East End option as, over time, it will move business & residences out there thus spreading out the traffic. But some people may downvote that for their own perfectly valid reasons.
court = a room in a commercial building. 1000’s of of rooms in buildings in gt available right now.
problem solved.
That’ll show them criminal sorts.