Tag Archives: Bahamas

ILN Today Post
February 6, 2018

The World Trade Organization: Do we or don’t we; The Legal Issues!?

By Halsbury Chambers of Halsbury Chambers

On January 18 2018 an historical admission was made and reliably reported upon in a leading Bahamian daily. It was an historic admission with legal implications with little equal. Neil Hartnell, Tribune Business Editor, quoted the Lead negotiator for the Bahamas’ WTO (World Trade organization) negotiating team as asserting that the Government’s ability to protect Bahamian companies from foreign competition was “long gone.’ It was a stark admission having regard for and its source and its constitutional, legal, social and political implications. The Lead negotiator, by way of a detailed interview, further admonished businesses to think bigger for survival. Businesses were put on notice to take a more” global look at how you do business”. Look beyond this nations borders they were told and “sell to the world “.

Posted in Central & South America | Legal Updates
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ILN Today Post
January 29, 2018

You and your Rights – Sexual Harassment in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas

By Halsbury Chambers of Halsbury Chambers

We have seen a great debate unfold in the United States over the last few months as to the rights of working women on the job. The movement is not gender specific nor is it limited to the dominant campaign which has been led by American women. The movement was started by Alyssa Milano, the “Charmed “actress. She fashioned the hash tag metoo and since, it has become a social media sensation. The purpose of the hash tag was to inform the public how pervasive the problem  of sexual harassment is .Today it is a platform for working men and women  to tell their stories of sexual violation and harassment in the workplace. Started by an actress, the # Metoo movement raises very important issues as to workplace safety and the rights of working women and men to work in a “sexual harassment free “environment. It has been characterized as a campaign which was started to expose the alleged sexual abuses of Hollywood powerful media mogul Harvey Weinstein. It has now morphed into a “heat seeking missile” exposing serial sexual abuse in the workplace. Since the Weinstein story broke the United States has witnessed an explosion of similar complaints across America. What about the Bahamas..?

Posted in Central & South America | Legal Updates
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ILN Today Post
January 26, 2018

Hacking and the Charter Aircraft Industry in The Bahamas

By Halsbury Chambers of Halsbury Chambers

The Pilot of the Aztec aircraft that crashed, killing himself and five other people did not have a Pilot’s License to carry passengers. These are the reports coming from a preliminary investigation of the fatal crash of the Piper Aztec plane in Andros Island in the Bahamas. The facts seem to suggest, per crash investigator, Mr. Delvin Major, that Mr. Darren Clarke who was piloting the aircraft was a licensed Private Pilot but purportedly not a licensed Commercial Pilot. Why is this important and is this a distinction with an important difference?

Posted in Legal Updates | North America
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ILN Today Post
January 26, 2018

The Lid is off: Marital Rape in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas

By Halsbury Chambers of Halsbury Chambers

Marital Rape is defined as the act of “sexual intercourse” with one’s spouse without the spouse’s consent. Generally speaking it is viewed as a form of domestic violence and /or abuse. In the Bahamas there is no law which criminalizes non consensual sexual intercourse between married persons. Single women and men thus enjoy a legislative protection which is not enjoyed by married women or for that matter married men. Outside the boundaries of recognized permissible grounds for making a complaint against a spouse for non sexual violence (e.g. Batteries and Assaults) the Law provides no such protection, in the Matrimonial Union, for non consensual sexual intercourse. Thus a woman is not competent to give evidence against her husband for an allegation of rape. Alternatively, she is competent for an allegation made of physical violence.

Posted in Legal Updates | North America
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ILN Today Post
August 9, 2016

Is there a disparity in the legal profession?

By Halsbury Chambers of Halsbury Chambers

“Haves and Have Nots”

By Nerissa Greene (Partner)

Like Professional women around the globe, women in the Bahamas have come a long way since the suffrage movement and gaining the right to vote. In decades gone by, societal norms instructed and encouraged men to devalue the contributions of women. In today’s globalized environment however, individual women have assumed roles of leadership alongside of, and ahead of their male counterparts and as a collective, women have continued to play significant roles from medicine, politics and yes even the once exclusively male legal fraternity.

Posted in Central & South America | Legal Updates
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ILN Today Post
December 20, 2011

THE IMPORTANCE OF A WILL

By Halsbury Chambers

Due to what has been termed as “An Historic Surge in the Bahamian Economy” during the past twenty years, more and more Bahamians, residents and also non-residents of The Bahamas have enjoyed considerable acquisition of wealth with the result that much thought should be given to “protection of such acquisition” and bearing this fact in mind, the question which usually arises is who do I want to leave my assets to upon my death and how can I make sure that such person(s) will in fact receive my properties.

A person’s assets comprise the sum total of his real property and personal property. Real property is land and anything growing on, attached to or erected on it, excluding anything that may be severed without injury to the land. On the other hand, personal property is everything except real property. Property that can be seen, weighed, measured, felt or touched or is in anyway perceptible, e.g. furniture, fixtures and fittings, books, clothing, bank accounts, insurance policies, company shares, motor vehicles, boats, golf carts, heavy duty equipment, tools, etc.

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Posted in Legal Updates | North America
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