Tag: Privy Council

50 years in law earns former CJ seat on UK Privy Council
(CNS): Sir Anthony Smellie, a former chief justice of the Cayman Islands, has been appointed to the Privy Council. In a release from the judiciary, Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale congratulated her predecessor, saying it was a fitting recognition of his long and distinguished career as a leading jurist in the Cayman Islands. Sir Anthony’s appointment […]

Appeal court blocks JCPC bid over civil partnerships
(CNS): An attempt by Kattina Anglin to take the challenge against local civil partnership legislation all the way to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) has been rejected by the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal. Anglin’s appeal challenging the findings of an earlier judicial review over whether or not the governor has the […]

UK court rules against closed-door legal hearing
(CNS): Two Caymanian prisoners serving life sentences for murder have won an important legal victory in a fight to serve their sentences at HMP Northward after being transferred without notice to high-security prisons in the UK. The Judicial Committee of the UK’s Privy Council (JCPC), after a historic sitting in the Cayman Islands, has ruled that […]

Poor prison security deprives inmates of rights
(CNS): A lawyer representing Justin Ramoon told the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) on Friday that his Caymanian client, who was moved to the UK to serve a life sentence with a minimum term of 35 years for the murder of Jason Powery, hadn’t seen his son for five years because of the […]

Privy Council’s stranglehold Caribbean LGBTQIA+ people
(Colours Caribbean): The UK Privy Council, comprising judges of the UK Supreme Court, continues to enable the oppression of LGBTQIA+ people in the Caribbean by reversing progressive lower court decisions and upholding the enforceability and constitutionality of anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in those states (most of which were themselves introduced by the UK).

PC judge stresses global importance of Cayman’s courts
(CNS): At the opening of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on Tuesday, its president, Lord Reed of Allermuir, said that some of the most important cases for the development of the common law around the world, in countries like Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore as well as the UK, are […]

Privy Council to sit in Cayman as new courts open
(CNS): The first of several new much-needed courtrooms unofficially opened last week in time to host the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which will be sitting in Grand Cayman to hear three local cases next month, the first time it has ever sat in any British Overseas Territory. It will deal with a dispute […]

Challenges to Constitution are welcome, says AG
(CNS): Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden-Bush “are to be commended for their determination to litigate the issues in their case”, Attorney General Samuel Bulgin said in the wake of last week’s Privy Council ruling that upheld the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal ruling that the Constitution does not give same-sex couples the right to marry.

Panton evades same-sex marriage question
(CNS): Premier Wayne Panton has said the ruling by the Privy Council in the Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden-Bush same-sex marriage case may have established that the Cayman Islands Constitution does not provide a right for gay couples to marry but this does not prevent Parliament from introducing a law to provide for it.