Introduction

• Author: George Belnavis
• Profession: Attorney-at-law of over 30 years practice at both the Public and Private Bar and is currently Senior Tutor II at the Norman Manley Law School, Kingston, where he has taught for nearly 20 years
• Pages: 13-14

Table of Cases / xiii

Introduction

This book describes and analyses the law on criminal practice and

procedure in some of the Commonwealth Caribbean Countries as at

November, 2008.

The jurisdictions whose laws have been detailed include:

Antigua and Barbuda

The Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Jamaica

Montserrat

Saint Christopher and Nevis

Saint Lucia; and

Trinidad and Tobago.

Countries such as Anguilla, Dominica , Guyana, Saint Vincent and The

Grenadines were not included because initially the materials in relation to

them were not readily available. Hopefully, a later edition will include

these countries.

Intended primarily for law students and legal practitioners generally,

Magistrates, Lay Magistrates and Police Officers will also find the

information useful.

This book was inspired by the paucity of written material in the

Commonwealth Caribbean on criminal practice and procedure and

comprises some 10 chapters beginning with initiating the proceedings

through to appeals. Though the statutory references are extensive, they are

not always verbatim and practitioners and students alike are directed to

read the law themselves.

The procedure in the Magistrates’ Courts have generally remained the

same over the past decade, with a few significant developments. The

Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago have all passed Bail

Acts which are fundamentally based on the 1976 English Bail Act. Saint

Lucia does not have a separate Bail Act but has included in its 2004 Criminal

Code extensive provisions codifying the principles relating to Bail. They

are similar to the Barbados Bail Act.

Committal proceedings in the Commonwealth Caribbean consists of

two types: One where the examining Magistrate considers all of the evidence

and decides at the end whether the accused should be committed to trial;