The Chief Justice has recently provided helpful guidance to practitioners seeking confidentiality orders in section 47 applications by handing down an ex tempore ruling in In the Matter of the BCD Trust, supporting the anonymisation and corresponding orders required to ensure that such applications are: “dealt with as private applications, where there is no obvious […]
Since the publication of the draft 2015 Amendment Bill in late December, the Bill passed into legislation with no changes to the substantive provisions proposed in the Bill: however, in order to remove the confusion that might arise if the provisions requiring the registration of all registers of directors and officers to be filed with […]
The proposed amendments to the Proceeds of Crime Act 1997 (POCA) (and related legislation) under the Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill 2015 require careful reading. The amendments proposed in this Bill introduce several important amendments in a piece meal fashion in relation to several distinct statutory régimes. The form and content of the amendments are […]
In an update to my post from January, ‘Another Step in the Right Direction: Bermuda Solvency II Equivalence‘, Bermuda has now been awarded full equivalence under the tough EU Solvency II regulations by the European Commission. After years of work, the Island is now one of only two non-EU jurisdictions to be recognised as in […]
As of 29 February 2016, same-sex partners of Bermudians will have the same right to reside and work in Bermuda as spouses of Bermudians. This is following the landmark decision of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Ian Kawaley, in Bermuda Bred Company v The Minister of Home Affairs and The Attorney-General handed […]
Prior to 2011 immigration appeals from decisions made by the Minister were dealt with by the Appeal Tribunal within the Cabinet. In 2011, the Immigration Appeal Tribunal (the “IAT”) was established as an independent body by the Bermuda Immigration & Protection Amendment Act 2011. However, it was only following the implementation of the Bermuda Immigration […]
Following the July 2015 ruling in Bermuda Press (Holdings) Ltd. v Registrar of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice subsequently issued a Practice Direction (No. 23 of 2015) regarding access to court records in civil cases. In the Bermuda Press case, discussed in this post, the Chief Justice had noted that access rights would still […]
A recent decision of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bermuda given on 23 November 2015, illustrates the importance of adherence to Human Rights’ provisions in the employment context. In what has been referred to as a landmark decision, the Chief Justice upheld a decision of a Board of Inquiry that Mr. Harkin […]
In early July of this year, I wrote a blog post detailing two proposed Criminal Law Reform bills: the Disclosure and Criminal Reform Act 2015 (the “Disclosure Act”) and the Criminal Jurisdiction and Procedure Act 2015 (the “Procedure Act”). At that point, the Bills had been passed by the House of Assembly on 5 June […]
For a diversity of reasons, many of us are unwilling to properly contemplate our own beliefs and preferences concerning the subject of end-of-life care. Some of us are young enough that we have no sense of our own mortality – we are invincible and have the advantage of a seemingly infinite time horizon to get […]
