The Cayman Islands Constitution Order 2009

Fair trial

7.—(1) Everyone has the right to a fair and public hearing in the determination of his or her legal rights and obligations by an independent and impartial court within a reasonable time.

(2) Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights—

(a)to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law;

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

(c)to have adequate time and the facilities for the preparation of his or her defence;

(d)to defend himself or herself in person or through legal assistance of his or her own choosing or, if he or she has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance and the interests of justice so require, through a legal representative at public expense provided through an established public legal aid scheme as prescribed by law;

(e)to examine or have examined witnesses against him or her and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his or her behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him or her;

(f)to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he or she cannot understand or speak the language used in court;

and, except with his or her own consent, the trial shall not take place in his or her absence, unless he or she so behaves 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 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 on the order of a superior court in the course of appeal or review proceedings relating to the conviction or acquittal.

(5) No person shall be tried for a criminal offence if he or she shows that he or she has been lawfully pardoned for that offence.

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

(7) Every person who has been convicted by a court of a criminal offence shall have the right to appeal to a superior court against his or her conviction or his or her sentence or both as may be prescribed by law; but—

(a)nothing in any law shall be held to contravene this subsection—

(i)to the extent that it precludes an appeal by a person against his or her conviction of an offence if he or she pleaded guilty to that offence at his or her trial; or

(ii)to the extent that it makes reasonable provision with respect to the grounds on which any such appeal may be made or with respect to the practice and procedure to be observed in relation to the making, hearing and disposal of any such appeal; and

(b)this subsection shall not apply in relation to the conviction of a person by a superior court, or in relation to his or her sentence on such conviction, if he or she was convicted by that court on an appeal against his or her acquittal by a lower court.

(8) When a person has, by a final decision of a court, been convicted of a criminal offence and, subsequently, on the ground that a newly-disclosed fact shows that there has been a miscarriage of justice his or her conviction has been quashed or he or she has been pardoned, he or she shall be compensated out of public funds for any punishment that he or she has suffered as a result of the conviction unless it is proved that the non-disclosure in time of that fact was wholly or partly his or her fault.

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

(10) Nothing in subsection (1) or (9) shall prevent the court from excluding from the proceedings persons other than the parties to them and their legal representatives to such extent as the court—

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

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

(11) Nothing in any law or done under its authority shall be held to contravene—

(a)subsection (2)(a), to the extent that the law in question imposes on 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 (4), 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, save that 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 imposed on him or her under that disciplinary law.

(12) In this section, “legal representative” means a person entitled to practise in the Cayman Islands as an attorney-at-law.