West Indian Reports

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.

West Indian Reports
Editor
editors for 2022
  • Yonette Cummings-Edwards (Guyana)
  • Michael Barnett (Bahamas)
  • Patrick Brooks (Jamaica)
  • Mabel Abyemang (T&C)
  • Patterson Cheltenham (Barbados)
  • Narinder Hargun (Bermuda)
  • Michelle Arana (Belize)
  • Janice Pereira (ECS)
  • Adrian Saunders (CCJ)
  • Ivor Archie (T&T)
CategoriesLaw reports
FrequencyBi-annual
PublisherButterworths (originally)
LexisNexis (now)
First issue1959 (1959)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Websitelexisweb.co.uk
OCLC01769628

History

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]

Reception

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]

Citation

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

Notes and references

Explanatory footnotes
  1. First publication misdated to 1960 by Newton 1979, p. 2.
  2. The court further directed that reference be made to the UK Law Reports if applicable (Bastide 2007, p. 400, para. g).
  3. 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
  4. The other being citations to the UK Law Reports (Bastide 2007, p. 400, para. g).
  5. Examples in proceeding table were taken from, from top to bottom, UKPC 2022, para. 56, UKSC 2011, para. 214, CCJ 2022, Cases referred to sec. on eighth unnumbered page.

Short citations
  1. Patchett 1963, p. 964.
  2. Newton 1979, p. 2.
  3. Mudge, Archibald & Pollard 1989, p. 37, sec. 2.a.
  4. Newton 1988, pp. 9–10.
  5. Wenger 2004, p. 14.
  6. Bastide 2007, p. 400, para. f.
  7. Dina 2018, secs. 1, 7.
  8. Newton 1979, pp. 2–3.
  9. Denbow 1986, pp. 33–34, paras. 4-5, 8.
  10. Denbow 1986, pp. 33–34, paras. 6, 8, 9-10.

Full citations
  1. "Jogie v Sealey" (Appeal No. 0090 of 2017). London: Privy Council. 15 August 2022.
  2. "Lumba v Secretary of State for the Home Department". London: Supreme Court. 23 March 2011.
  3. "Sersland & Paz v St Matthews University School of Medicine Ltd". Port of Spain, Trinidad: Caribbean Court of Justice. 24 November 2022.
  4. Bastide, M. A. de la (14 March 2007). "Practice Direction (Caribbean Court of Justice: Citation of Judgments and Reported Cases)". West Indian Reports. pp. 399–401.
  5. Davies, Lisa; Tyson, Alice (February 2022). "Commonwealth countries: Commonwealth". IALS Library (Library guide). London: School of Advanced Study of the University of London.
  6. Denbow, Claude (July–November 1986). "West Indian Legal Material – Availability – Problems of the Researchers". Caribbean Law Librarian. Vol. 3, no. 2–3. Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Association of Law Libraries. pp. 33–36. hdl:2027/txu.059172018130807.
  7. Dina, Yemisi (November–December 2018) [First published May 2006]. "Guide to Caribbean Law Research". GlobaLex. Updated version. New York, NY: New York University.
  8. Newton, Velma (March 1979). "An Historical Perspective of Law Reporting in the English-Speaking Caribbean: A Case for Regional Law Reporting". International Journal of Law Libraries. 7 (1): 1–22. ISSN 0340-045X.
  9. Newton, Velma (September 1988). "Standards for Court Libraries". Caribbean Journal of Legal Information. 5 (2): 6–13. ISSN 0255-7118.
  10. Patchett, K. W. (July 1963). "English Law in the West Indies: A Conference Report". International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 12 (3): 922–966. JSTOR 756296.
  11. Mudge, Arthur W.; Archibald, Joseph; Pollard, Duke E. E. (July 1989). Caribbean Improvement of Justice Project (Eastern Caribbean and Belize): Midterm Evaluation (Report). Washington, DC: TvT Associates for USAID.
  12. Wenger, Jean M. (September 2004). "Caribbean Law Librarian Par Excellence Addresses Members in Boston". FCIL Newsletter. Vol. 19, no. 1. Chicago, IL: American Association of Law Libraries. pp. 14–15.
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