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 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 law 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 appeals no longer lie, the Supreme Court of Jamaica, the Court of Appeal of Jamaica and the Federal Supreme Court.

This web site makes available for the first time in electronic form judgments taken from the printed CILR. Also available on-line are the “raw materials” issued by the courts themselves — the Unreported Judgments, published without correction or amendment.

Hard copies of the Cayman Islands Law Reports are available to Cayman subscribers from the courts (please contact Mrs. Patricia Palmer, Personal Assistant to the Hon. Chief Justice Patricia.Palmer@judicial.ky). The CILR are available to overseas subscribers from the publishers, Law Reports International, in England www.lawreports.com.