To follow the laws of the land, you must be able to access and understand them.
And here in the Virgin Islands, that has been far too difficult for far too long.
The Attorney General Chambers therefore deserves kudos for its recent progress with the ongoing Law Revision and Accessibility of Laws Project.
Attorney General Dawn Smith announced last month that 93 VI laws are now revised and posted online. More than 100 others, she said, will be revised and uploaded later this year, with the rest to follow.
The exercise, which Cabinet okayed in April 2021, should have come 20 years ago. But late is better than never.
Historically, many people wishing to consult VI laws have faced two major obstacles.
The first was the absence of a dedicated online portal, which meant they often had to find physical copies.
This challenge was mitigated somewhat with the opening of the public law library at the Attorney General Chambers in 2014. (On a personal note of gratitude, the library’s friendly staff have always gone out of their way to assist this newspaper’s journalists.)
But the law library is not terribly helpful for sister island residents, people abroad, or anyone who needs to access laws urgently outside its opening hours.
Second, even at the law library, users often have to comb through a confusing array of primary legislation and amendments that aren’t combined into one document.
This is because VI laws have been consolidated infrequently at best.
The first revised edition of the territory’s laws was completed in 1961, followed by a second in 1991, Ms. Smith said last month.
Despite a 2013 “interim” revised edition that included immigration, criminal and financial services legislation, many other laws have not received a comprehensive update for more than three decades before the current exercise.
The ongoing project is a good start toward addressing both problems explained above. We hope the Attorney General Chambers will finalise it quickly and post all laws online in consolidated form as soon as possible.
After that, the chambers should also set up an efficient system that ensures that laws are consolidated and posted online regularly in a timely manner. To that end, the Cabinet and the House of Assembly must provide all the needed funding and other support.
Leaders should also take other steps to make legislation more accessible. Too often in the VI, laws contain needlessly complex wording that appears designed to obfuscate rather than communicate. This antiquated approach does a disservice to the people of the territory.
To tackle this problem, drafters and legislators might look to the United Kingdom Parliament, which has been pushing a “good law” initiative designed to ensure that legislation is written in clear and accessible language from the time it is drafted. The VI should do the same.
It is essential for the health of any democracy that the laws of the land are clear and accessible to everyone. Despite the attorney general’s laudable efforts in recent years, the territory still has a long way to go in this regard.
