The Turks and Caicos Islands Constitution Order 2006

Provisions to secure protection of law

6.—(1) If any person is charged with a criminal offence, then, unless the charge is withdrawn, the case shall be afforded a fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court established by law.

(2) Every person who is charged with a criminal offence—

(a)shall be presumed to be innocent until he or she is proved guilty according to law;

(b)shall be informed promptly, in a language that he or she understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him or her;

(c)shall be given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his or her defence;

(d)shall be permitted to defend himself or herself before the court in person or, at his or her own expense, by a legal representative of his or her own choice or, when the interests of justice so require, by a legal representative at the public expense;

(e)shall be afforded facilities to examine in person or by his or her legal representative the witnesses called by the prosecution before the court, and to obtain the attendance and carry out the examination of witnesses to testify on his or her behalf before the court on the same conditions as those applying to witnesses called by the prosecution;

(f)shall be permitted to have without payment the assistance of an interpreter if he or she cannot understand or speak the language used at the trial of the charge; and

(g)shall, when charged on information in the Supreme Court, have the right to trial by jury;

and, except with his or her own consent, the trial shall not take place in his or her absence, unless he or she so conducts himself or herself in the court as to render the continuance of the proceedings in his or her presence impracticable and the court has ordered him or her to be removed and the trial to proceed in his or her absence, or unless, having had reasonable notice of the hearing and of the nature of the offence charged, he or she is voluntarily absent from the proceedings.

(3) When a person is tried for any criminal offence, the accused person or any person authorised by him or her shall, if he or she so requires and subject to payment of such reasonable fee as may be prescribed by law, be given within a reasonable time after judgment a copy for the use of the accused person of any record of the proceedings made by or on behalf of the court.

(4) No person shall be held to be guilty of a criminal offence on account of any act or omission that did not, at the time it took place, constitute such an offence, and no penalty shall be imposed for any criminal offence that is severer in degree or description than the maximum penalty that might have been imposed for that offence at the time when it was committed.

(5) No person who shows that he or she has been tried by a competent court for a criminal offence and either convicted or acquitted shall again be tried for that offence or for any other criminal offence of which he or she could have been convicted at the trial for that offence, save upon the order of a superior court in the course of appeal or review proceedings relating to the conviction or acquittal.

(6) No person shall be tried for a criminal offence if he or she shows that he or she has been pardoned for that offence under section 95.

(7) No person who is tried for a criminal offence shall be compelled to give evidence at the trial.

(8) Any court or other adjudicating authority prescribed by law for the determination of the existence or extent of any civil right or obligation shall be established by law and shall be independent and impartial; and where proceedings for such determination are instituted by any person before such a court or other adjudicating authority, the case shall be determined fairly within a reasonable time.

(9) All proceedings instituted in any court for the determination of the existence or extent of any civil right or obligation or to try any criminal charge, including the announcement of the decision of the court, shall be held in public.

(10) Nothing in subsection (9) shall prevent the court from excluding from the proceedings persons other than the parties and their legal representatives to such extent as the court—

(a)may be empowered by law to do so and may consider strictly necessary or expedient in circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice, or in interlocutory proceedings or in the interests of the welfare of minors or the private lives of persons concerned in the proceedings; or

(b)may be empowered or required by law to do so in the interests of defence, public safety, public order, or public morality.

(11) Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of—

(a)subsection (2)(a) to the extent that the law in question imposes upon any person charged with a criminal offence the burden of proving particular facts;

(b)subsection (2)(e) to the extent that the law in question imposes conditions that must be satisfied if witnesses called to testify on behalf of an accused person are to be paid their expenses out of public funds;

(c)subsection (5) to the extent that the law in question authorises a court to try a member of a disciplined force for a criminal offence notwithstanding any trial and conviction or acquittal of that member under the disciplinary law of that force; but any court so trying such a member and convicting him or her shall in sentencing him or her to any punishment take into account any punishment awarded him or her under that disciplinary law.

(12) (a) Every person convicted of a criminal offence by a court shall have the right to have his or her conviction or sentence reviewed by a higher court; and the exercise of this right, including the grounds on which it may be exercised, shall be governed by law.

(b)This right may be subject to exceptions in regard to offences of a minor character, as prescribed by law, or in cases in which the person concerned was tried in the first instance by the highest court or was convicted following an appeal against acquittal.

(13) When a person has by a final decision been convicted of a criminal offence and when subsequently his or her conviction has been reversed, or he or she has been pardoned on the ground that a new or newly discovered fact shows conclusively that there has been a miscarriage of justice, the person who has suffered punishment as a result of such conviction shall be compensated according to law, unless it is proved that the non-disclosure of the unknown fact in time is wholly or partly attributable to him or her.

(14) In this section, “legal representative” means a person entitled to practise in the Islands as an attorney.