Message from the President
The Honourable Mr. Justice Milton A. Evans,
President of the Court Of Appeal
Article 98 of the Constitution of the Bahamas provides that "(1) There shall be a Court of Appeal for The Bahamas which shall have such jurisdiction and powers as may be conferred upon it by this Constitution or any other law." Article 98 also makes provision for the composition of the Court and the method of appointment of Justices for the Court.
The Court of Appeal Act which was enacted in 1964 was assented to on the 29th December 1964 and the commencement date was 7th January 1965. The first President was the Hon. Sir. Ronald O Sinclair who served from 1965 to 1970. We have come a long way since those days when the Court was comprised of non-resident judges who heard cases in sessions. Our justices are now all resident, and we now sit the whole year, save for the month of August when the Court takes a break.
I take my seat as President during an exciting time when the Court has moved into the age of technology. For the last four years we have heard appeals virtually utilizing the Zoom platform. This transition has been a smooth one and has found favour with both the justices and the attorneys. This notwithstanding, the Court plans to implement a hybrid system as of June 2025. Additionally, we are moving towards e-filing and our files are already stored online for ease of access.
It is my goal during my tenure as President to update the Rules of this Court which date back to 2005 and are in need of being updated. Accordingly, one of my first acts as President has been to appoint a Rules Committee to review the Rules of this Court with a view to either amending or replacing the existing rules, pursuant to the powers vested in me by section 8 of the Court of Appeal Act. It is anticipated that this exercise will also require making recommendations to the Honourable Attorney-General for amendments to the Court of Appeal Act itself.
I encourage you to continue to utilize this website to access relevant information relative to what is happening at the Court. We particularly encourage you to search and read the judgments which we post on the website. This is a good practice for attorneys in order to keep current with the latest authorities, but it also allows the general public to get a better understanding as to how we arrive at our decisions. We are in the process of working to make the website more user friendly.
Finally, it is our commitment to continue to provide our decisions in a timely manner and to make those decisions fairly, without fear of favour.
The Honourable Mr. Justice Milton A. Evans
President of The Court of Appeal