Law reform in the UK

This article reports on several developments in 2003: the implementation of the European Communities Framework Employment Directive, the introduction of a private member's Equality Bill, and the publication of the National AIDS Trust's report on UK anti-discrimination law.     

Law reform across the commonwealth: A new voice

This article examines the proviso to the ‘alternative remedies’ provision/clause in Commonwealth Caribbean constitutions. It does so from two perspectives emerging from the jurisprudence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in this area. In the first, exemplified by Harrikissoon v Attorney General, the applicant brings a constitutional motion for infringements of his fundamental rights or freedoms in circumstances where he may have an alternative remedy at common law or under statute. In that decision, the Privy Council delineated the scope of this proviso under the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, effectively importing an ‘alternative remedies’ clause from the use of the word ‘may’ in section 14(2) of the Constitution. This article examines, first, what Harrikissoon decided; second, whether its reasoning is acceptable given the wording of the section; and, third, the limitations accepted by subsequent decisions of the Privy Council. In the second perspective, the applicant makes a similar application for infringements of his fundamental rights or freedoms arising from or occurring during the course of proceedings already begun. The locus classicus is the decision of Chokolingo v Attorney General and forms part of the wider concern of the courts to prevent its processes being abused where the applicant makes a collateral constitutional challenge rather than pursuing an ordinary appeal. This article also aims to examine the decisions that pre‐dated Chokolingo in order to understand its jurisprudential underpinnings; to explore that decision to determine what the Privy Council in Chokolingo decided; to consider the similarities and differences between the reasoning therein and that of the Privy Council in Harrikissoon; and to consider the extent to which the principle enunciated in Chokolingo has been extended or limited in subsequent decisions of the Privy Council.     

The Law Commission's recommendations: a triumph in trust reform

A major advance in trust law reform has been achieved by theLaw Commission's recommendation that there should be no radicallegislative change but a substantial shift in practice associatedwith exemptions of clauses in trust instruments. The advance is as much in the way the changes are to be achievedas in the actual proposals (Law Com No 301) that the law Commissionhave put to the government. These were presented with prideto interested parties in the House of Lords late in July. The shift in practice has not been arrived