Help

About this Site

The Law Library of the University of the West Indies produces a Consolidated Index of Statutes and Subsidiary legislation for each Commonwealth Caribbean country. This site allows you to search the legislation of many of these countries at once, depending on which countries you have subscribed to.

Choose a country below to learn more about laws of that country available in this site.

Searching

You can conduct searches by entering search terms into the main search bar. The main search bar can be used to search all collections at the same time. Type in your search terms and then click the "Search" button or hit the "Enter" key.

Features

While searching, keep in mind that you have access to the following helpful features.

Automatic Spelling Corrections and "Did you mean" Search Suggestions

As you enter search terms in the main search bar, suggested topics or names will come up automatically for you to choose from. If your initial search does not bring up any results, the system will suggest alternate searches that are known to bring back results.

Narrowing Down Your Search

If you run a search and get a lot of search results, you can choose to refine your search by using the "Revise Search" options.

Brief and Detailed Views

You can view more information about each item in your search results by clicking on the name of the item. Clicking on the item name a second time will bring back the brief view of the item.

Selection List

You can save items that you’re interested in to a temporary list by clicking on the "Select" button. If you would like to remove an item from the list, click on the "Remove" button. Multiple items can be added to the list, across different searches. To view your list, select the "View Selections" link or button.

Additional Search Options

The additional search options listed here can be used as described, on their own, or in combination.

Combining Search Terms with Boolean Operators

You can combine search terms with the AND, OR, and NOT Boolean operators (typed out in all capitals).

Multiple search terms are automatically assumed to be combined with AND, but you can combine the search terms explicitly by typing out AND between the terms. Use AND for searching when you want results that match both (or more) search terms.

e.g., to search for documents that contain both administration and estates, in the search bar, type:

administration AND estates

To look for records that match any one of your search terms, use OR.

e.g., to search for documents that contain either administration or estates, in the search bar, type:

administration OR estates

Use NOT if you would like to include one search term but exclude another.

e.g., to search for documents that contain administration but do not contain estates, in the search bar, type:

administration NOT estates

Grouping Terms

You can use parentheses to group terms and phrases. This can be very useful if you want to control the boolean logic for a query.

e.g., to search for documents that contain both administration and estates, but not foreigners, in the search bar, type:

(administration AND estates) NOT foreigners

Phrase Searches

To search for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation marks in the search bar.

e.g., to search for documents that contain the exact words 'administration of estates act', type:

"administration of estates act"

Wildcard Searches

Wildcard searches can be used when you do not know the exact term you are searching for, or if you wish to look at variations of your search term.

e.g., to find results that match text or test, you can use the ? symbol and search for:

te?t

The ? symbol is used in place of a single character. To search for multiple unknown characters, use the * symbol.

e.g., to find results that match test, tests, tester, testing, or any other variation that begins with test, search for:

test*

The * symbol can be used in the middle of a term.

e.g., to find test, tempest, tenet, etc. (i.e., any words that begin with "te-" and end in "-t"), search for:

te*t

You can also use the ? and * symbols at the start of a term.

e.g., to search for test, harvest, forest, etc. (i.e., any words that end in "-est"), search for:

*est

Proximity Searches

To search for documents that have two terms within a certain number of words of each other, use the ~ symbol with a number.

e.g., to search for the terms administration and estates within 10 words of each other, search for:

"administration estates"~10

where the desired terms are in quotation marks, followed immediately by the ~ symbol and a number.

Fuzzy Searches

The ~ symbol can also be used for approximate searches, but only when a single word is being searched.

e.g., to search for terms that are similar in spelling to cat, search for:

cat~

This will bring back results that match terms like bat, rat, mat and hat, in addition to cat.

Range Searches

To perform a range search, use the [ ] symbols and the word TO (in all capitals).

e.g., if you’re searching for names that fall alphabetically between Gibson and Hudson, search for:

[Gibson TO Hudson]

You can also search a range of numbers using the same method.

e.g., if you’re searching for documents from between 2006 to 2008, search for:

[2006 TO 2008]

Boosting a Term

To give one search term more importance over another, you can use the ^ symbol followed by a number.

e.g., if you want to search for documents with both administration and estates, but estates is the more important search term, search for:

administration estates^5

which will give the term estates 5 times the value of the term administration.