Editor | editors for 2022
|
---|---|
Categories | Law reports |
Frequency | Bi-annual |
Publisher | Butterworths (originally) LexisNexis (now) |
First issue | 1959 |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Website | lexisweb.co.uk |
OCLC | 01769628 |
The West Indian Reports, abbreviated WIR, are a series of law reports of cases decided in the high and appellate courts of West Indian states and territories, and of appeals therefrom to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Caribbean Court of Justice. The Reports include judgements from The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Eastern Caribbean States, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. They were first published in 1959 and, as of 2022, are currently published in two volumes each year, in both digital and hard copy formats.
The Reports were first published in 1959 by Butterworths of London. [1] [note 1] Early volumes were published annually, edited by the chief justices of, and 'some other judges' in, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the West Indies Associated States, and reported cases only from said jurisdictions. [2] [3] By 1988, the series were deemed essential stock for court libraries by a majority of 'legal officers, the judiciary and private practitioners of the Commonwealth Caribbean.' [4] As late as September 2004, the series were still deemed 'the only [regional] report[s] published on a regular basis.' [5] On 14 March 2007, the Caribbean Court of Justice directed that reference to the Reports 'should always' be given when cases cited in proceedings are reported in said series. [6] [note 2] By December 2018, the Reports had been digitised and disseminated online, thereby improving access to and discoverability of West Indian case law, resulting in a '[Commonwealth] Caribbean legal literature [which] has evolved rapidly in the last decade.' [7]
The Reports were initially criticised for an unusually restrictive, selective, and inconstruable editorial policy, and a prolonged time to publication, leading to 'inadequate' and 'defective' reporting. [1] [8] For instance, in April 1977, attendees of a workshop regarding legal education in the Caribbean noted 'the [continuing] need for an improved system of reporting [of] the decisions of the courts of the Commonwealth Caribbean.' [2] Further, in a July 1985 address to the Caribbean Association of Law Libraries, Claude Denbow, a tutor at the Hugh Wooding Law School, noted that the Reports were still not sufficiently referenced in proceedings before West Indian courts, especially by barristers trained in England, leading to judgements discordant with 'local conditions.' [9] Denbow attributed this state of affairs to, among other factors, the delayed publication of judgements in the Reports, and the confusing criteria employed by the Reports for the inclusion or exclusion of judgements. [10] [note 3]
Citations to the Reports are one of two standard references for proceedings before the Caribbean Court of Justice. [6] [note 4] Cases reported in the Reports are cited as in the accompanying table. [note 5] For instance, the first record of said table indicates that the decision of the Trinidad and Tobago Supreme Court, entitled Archbald v Camacho, was decided in 1960 and may be found in volume 3 of the West Indian Reports, starting on page 40.
Style of cause | (year of decision) | [year of report] | volume | report | (series) | page |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Archbald v Camacho | (1960) | 3 | WIR | 40 | ||
Jorsingh v Attorney General | (1997) | 52 | WIR | 501 | ||
Ali v David | (2020) | 99 | WIR | 363 |
When one looks at the [case] reporting system itself, there is a second area of considerable difficulty [precluding the development of 'any form of localised or West Indian jurisprudence,' the first area being a lack of secondary literature on West Indian case law]. This is because the West Indian reporting system [...] is not in the most satisfactory state. You will first of all find that the reports are quite out-of-date. Decisions made in 1979 may just be finding their way into the West Indian Reports [in] 1985. That may be overstating it a bit but I think you will find examples of that. So, long delay between the delivery of a judgement and its being carried in those reports is the first stumbling block in [the aforementioned, second] area. Secondly one is not very clear [on] what criteria are used [by the Reports], hence one finds some very trifling decisions reported and very serious decisions never find their way into the reports. They just remain as "No. 1100 of 1979" and you might pick it up by luck or chance [only]. So when you take those factors together – the delayed publication, and the confusing criteria as to what decisions make the Reports – you will find that the whole impact of West Indian decisions [on jurisprudence] is nullified in this part of the world [the West Indies itself] because people are not going to spend an inordinate length of time looking for a decision. [...] [I]n the professional field, the reality of it is that you are not going to find the West Indian decisions being pursued.
— Denbow 1986, p. 34, paras. 8-10