Bahamas: Civil Liberties and Privacy — The Question of Balance

The topic is extremely broad and requires definitions of civil liberties, privacy and balance, which this short paper will not undertake. From age to age, the pendulum has swung from, on the one hand, private property and private rights to, on the other hand, the powers of the police, and the public interest in the detection, prevention and punishment of crime. The experience with privacy varies from culture to culture. The question of balance arises, for example, in connection with search and seizure, the use of improperly obtained evidence, and the interception of communications. However, this paper touches on the penetration of bank secrecy, the Inter‐American Convention against Corruption of the Organization of American States (OAS), and a number of constitutional principles arising from the cases, especially the Bahamian case of Carlos Enrique Ledher‐Rivas aka Joe Ledher, a major Colombian drug lord. The latter case is reported as International Dutch Resources v Attorney General [1989] 1 LRB 357 (the Joe Ledher case).