Stalking Legislation

The Law Reform Commission has commenced an examination into the legislative issues that touch and concern stalking in the Cayman Islands. This examination is aimed at addressing the problems relating to stalking by defining stalking behaviour and identifying appropriate legal remedies to prevent or reduce harm brought about by such conduct.

The LRC proposes to respond to the main issues by way of a consultation Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2014 and a Stalking (Civil Jurisdiction) Bill, 2014. These Bills seek to criminalise and provide remedies for conduct such as making unwelcome visits, making unwanted communications or silent telephone calls, repeatedly following a person on the streets, watching the victim’s home or place of work, persistently sending unwanted gifts or articles to the victim, disclosing intimate facts about the victim to third parties, making false accusations about the victim, damaging property belonging to the victim or physical and verbal abuse.

The categories of stalkers contemplated by the legislation include the rejected stalker, predatory stalkers, debt collectors, erotomanics, love obsessed stalkers, sociopathic stalkers, stalkers with false victimisation syndromes, disgruntled clients or employees of private or public organisations and cyberstalkers.

Ultimately, the objective of the legislation is to reinforce that actions which constitute stalking may cause psychiatric and psychological harm and may result in serious danger to the person affected.  It is therefore in the best interests of our society to take immediate and effective action when cases of stalking arise.

Stakeholders and the general public are invited to provide comments on the draft legislation. Unless marked to the contrary, the LRC will assume that comments received are not confidential, and that respondents consent to our quoting from, or referring to, their comments and attributing their comments to them, and to the release or publication of their submissions. Requests for confidentiality or anonymity will be respected to the extent permitted by the Freedom of Information Law, 2007.

Submissions should be forwarded in writing by post or hand no later than 5th May, 2014 to the Director, Law Reform Commission, Ground Floor – dms House, 20 Genesis Close, George Town, Grand Cayman, P.O. Box 907, Grand Cayman KY1-1103 or emailed to cheryl.neblett@gov.ky.