There are several ways in which you can access the legislation catalogued on Bahamas Laws Online, namely, by:
- All legislation
- Acts
- Subsidiary
- Repealed
- Index
When searching the Bahamas Laws Online, you will note numbers in the column to the left of the title of the law and dates in the column to the right of the title of the law.
The numbers to the left indicate the number of that law and the year in which that law was enacted. For instance, 2018-0004 means that the Act was the fourth Act passed by Parliament in the year 2018. Similarly, in the case of subsidiary legislation, a notation of 2020-0001 means that the statutory instrument was the first to be made in the year 2020.
The dates appearing to the right of the title of a law indicates the date on which the law or parts of it came into force, also known as the “commencement date”. When hovering over the commencement date, a note may appear stating:
- additional dates upon which various sections or parts of the enactment came into force; or
- which sections or parts of the enactment may not be in force at the that time.
In some instances, a law which is particularly lengthy or verbose may not appear on Bahamas Laws Online and a notice to contact Government Publications for a hard copy of the same will appear. You may also obtain official and hard copies of any law appearing on Bahamas Laws Online from Government Publications.