It is important that the judgments of the courts are made publicly available, as they form part of the law of the land in relation to the principles they decide. The “precedents” established by court decisions have to be followed by future courts and it is therefore crucial that they are collected together and the most important ones published and thoroughly indexed. They are in daily use by the Cayman Islands courts and by the attorneys who practice before them.
The Cayman Islands Law Reports (CILR) were first published in the mid-1980s and is a publication which is edited and produced to the highest academic and professional standards. They now contain reports of the most significant decisions in Cayman Islands from 1952 to the present day (with notes of some earlier cases back to the start of the 20th century). Coverage is given to precedents created by the modern courts – the Grand Court, the Court of Appeal and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London – and also to older cases in courts to which Cayman Islands appeals no longer lie, the Supreme Court of Jamaica, the Court of Appeal of Jamaica and the Federal Supreme Court.
This website makes available in electronic format judgments taken from the printed CILR, accessible via subscription. Also available online (free of charge) are the “raw materials” issued by the courts themselves – the Unreported Judgments, published without correction or amendment.
Hardcopies of the CILR are available to Cayman Islands subscribers from the courts (please contact Mr. Victor Villarin, Law Librarian, Victor.Villarin@judicial.ky). The CILR are available to overseas subscribers directly from the publishers, Law Reports International, in England www.lawreports.com.