The Jamaican Constitutional Court in a 3-judge panel decision recently struck down an entire statute. The act – the National Identification and Registration Act 2017 – was being implemented with a view to making registration in a national ID database mandatory.

The complainant in the case had argued that it breached his constitutional rights.

The case is made interesting as the Jamaican Constitution does not include an express broad-based right to privacy and, certainly not informational privacy. In striking down the act, the Court took a weaving path that required an assessment of the degree to which the Jamaican Constitution provided a basis for protecting the right to privacy, despite this.

The Constitutional Court, having reviewed prior case law from throughout the Commonwealth, concluded that given the necessity of the right to privacy as a precursor to the enjoyment of the other rights in the Jamaican Constitution, a general right to privacy must be read into the Jamaican Constitution.

A copy of the case can be found here.