Preface

• Author: Ralph Hone
• Pages: #1

I PREFACE.

This Edition of the Laws of the Bahama Islands has been prepared under the authority of The Revised Edition of the Laws Act 1964, which is printed immediately after the Table of Contents.

The last Edition contained the Statute Law of the Bahama Islands as at 1st January 1957 and consisted of five main volumes containing 370 Chapters. A sixth or supplementary volume contained chronological tables, an index and a reprint of some 75 Acts which owing to their nature or subject-matter were not considered suitable for inclusion in the main volumes. After such a short lapse ýof time it would not normally have been necessary to produce a new Edition of the Statute Laws of the Bahama Islands but this step has proved unavoidable because,of the very extensive amendments of the existing Statute Law that were required by reason of the introduction of the new Constitution of the Colony on 7th January 1964.

The present Edition sets out the Statute Law as at 1st April 1965 and consists of six main volumes containing 331 Chapters, which, as in the former Edition, are divided under Titles and Sub-titles according to their subject-matter. Many of the main features of the 1957

Edition have been retained but considerable re-arrangement of the Chapters has been necessary, primarily to ensure that the six volumes of the Edition are approximately 'of equal size. Each volume now commences with,a Table of Contents giving a complete list of the legislation contained in all six volumes divided into the Titles and Subtitles and at the end of each volume there is an alphabetical list of the short titles 'of all the Acts contained in this Revised Edition. One other innovation in this Edition, however, may be noted; in a few Acts the Commissioners have not invoked their powers to re-number the sections. This is because it was felt that in the cases of statutes which are liable to frequent judicial interpretation (such as The Penal Code) changes in the numbering of sections, subsections and paragraphs of an Act whenever a new Edition is compiled, could, over the years, lead to confusion and cause inconvenience to those who have to refer to cases decided in the courts.

As in the previous Edition, the basic Constitutional Instruments relating to the Colony have been included in Volume I and throughout the Edition, among the Chapters, will be found -enactments of the Parliament at Westminster which have from time to time been extended to the Colony by local...