The UK-based Privy Council has rejected an application from Cayman’s Cruise Port Referendum (CPR) for leave to challenge the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal’s decision on people-initiated referendums.

The case surrounds an appeal made by local activist Shirley Roulstone’s in connection with a legal case relating to the Cruise Port Referendum campaign, in which she challenged the constitutionality of the previous government’s decision to set a referendum on the cruise berthing project before it had passed general legislation relating to people-initiated polls.

With this decision, the government does not need to pass a general law on referendums and if it chooses can legislate for each individual ballot, leaving the rules that provide or this constitutional right open to the political fancy of whichever administration is in office.

Roulstone had appealed to the British high court after the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal overturned the Grand Court March 2020 ruling last summer. Acting Judge Tim Owen had ruled that section 70 of the Constitution, which paves the way for people-initiated referendums (PIRs), needed a general referendum law for such ballots to set the parameters.

However, the government embarked on a successful appeal, which led Roulstone and the CPR campaign to take the case to London.

Based on the ruling handed down by the Privy Council on April 28, the Parliament in this British Overseas territory must enact separate pieces of legislation for each referendum.

Attorney General Sam Bulgin has welcomed what he said was “helpful clarification of the Constitutional position, given the understandable public interest surrounding this issue”.

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