Officials release draft laws to tackle stalking
(CNS): The Law Reform Commission (LRC) has released two draft bills that will criminalize and help tackle the problem of stalking. The legal drafters are seeking input from the public on an amendment to the penal code and a separate Stalking Bill. The drafters have spent some time wrestling with the definition of stalking and how best to legislate against such behaviour and reduce the potential harm. The laws deal with unwelcome visits and communications, silent calls, repeated following on the streets, watching a victim’s home or work, persistently sending unwanted gifts or articles, disclosing intimate facts about a victim to others, making false accusations, damaging property or physical and verbal abuse.
The LRC proposes to respond to theissues by way of a consultation Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2014 and a Stalking (Civil Jurisdiction) Bill, 2014 which will criminalise and provide remedies for such conduct. The bills cover categories of stalkers such as someone rejected by the victim, predatory stalkers, debt collectors, erotomanics, love obsessed stalkers, sociopathic stalkers, stalkers with false victimisation syndromes, as well as disgruntled clients or employees of private or public organisations and cyber-stalkers.
The objective of the legislation, the drafters said, is to reinforce the point that actions which constitute stalking may cause psychiatric and psychological harm and may result in serious danger to the person affected.
“It is in the best interests of our society to take immediate and effective action when cases of stalking arise,” the LRC said in a release to the public about the laws.
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 their 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
See the proposed draft laws below along with the original consultation paper.
Category: Crime
Blimey, talk about deja vu, soon as I saw that picture my mind rushed back to that Compass appeal a few years back. If you don't know what I'm referencing, for a laugh, ask someone who's been here a while!
A plethora of conditions / actions that should not be labeled as stalking. This is another part of the grand scheme / strategy of the ‘Johnny Come Lately’ who view native Caymanians with an intolerable scorn. They lobby for legislation such as this to be able to label, push aside and keep natives down and out of their way. Some view us in the same light as they do the indigenous civilizations / population in their own home countries.
Other examples of their lobbying attempts / success is the removal of seven breeds of dogs from the banned breeds list under the Animal Law regulations, another is the changes in the Immigration Law that has a Caymanian defined in one clause i.e. Status Holder, Permanent Residency, Naturalized Caymanian, Born Caymanian, etc. The common fraise heard often is that they are now a Caymanian and equal to us because of definition in the law, a technicality that needs to be revisited and revised with separate definitions for each type of Caymanian.
Our laws a slowly being tailored to use against us, it is inevitable that eventually we will have to be extremely careful how we conduct ourselves in our homeland.
Wait…
They are too busy to pass OMOV or decrease the duties on fuel as was promised – but they have time to make a law about stalking?
I wonder if someone was stalking them to try to get OMOV passed and import duties reduced?
Unneeded laws seem to pop up all the time. The ones we need languish for long, unexplained periods.
I had not realised that stalking was compulsory here. Damn, I better get some in quick.
I remember the days when being an erotomanic sociopath was fun.
Here we go again! Another law to criminalise young people who will be most affected as they most often make immature judgements in romantic relationships. It would be better to run programs in the schools to educate them about making better judgements in matters of the heart. It will be karma when the children of those who promote or support these types of laws are locked up or charged with offences under this pointless law. Of course, then they will be calling for changes to the law or repeal of the law. We have laws on the books now that deal with these matters and they simply need to be enforced. Another fact we need to bear in mind when we pass laws in this small island in an effort to copy developed countries (USA/UK), we DONT have the resources to enforce them all!
It seems like there is a new law released every other week. Stop releasing new laws and start enforcing the existing ones!!!!
Is it considered stalking if someone creates a website with the intention to destroy the reputation of another individual? Is there a medical conditton for someone that would do something like that?