Senior Political Reporter
Government is moving to place Trinidad and Tobago’s laws in an official digital format alongside the traditional printed version, a change expected to save taxpayers millions spent printing legal volumes overseas.
Minister of Land and Legal Affairs Saddam Hosein outlined the move in the Senate yesterday while piloting the Law Revision (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
The legislation, which received unanimous support from Government, Opposition and Independent senators, will allow the country’s laws to be made available online as official versions, similar to the printed “Red Book” volumes currently recognised in law.
Hosein said that although many people already download laws from the internet, those versions are not considered official under existing legislation, which requires the laws of Trinidad and Tobago to be published in printed volumes.
The amendment will therefore place the law on an electronic footing while maintaining the printed version.
“Persons often go online and download versions of the law, but those are not the official versions,” Hosein said.
He added that the new system will reduce the risk of errors and make the laws easier to update.
Currently, when legislation is amended, pages must be removed from the printed volumes and replaced with updated pages in the red binders.
“That cannot work,” Hosein said, recalling that during his legal training under the late Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal, she once handed him boxes of printed material and tasked him with revising the laws using the manual removal-and-insertion method.
Hosein said the law revision process currently involves three elements: the consolidation of laws, revised printed editions and supplementary updates.
He noted that the shift to an online system will also reduce costs, since the binders and printed versions are expensive and must be produced overseas.
“Our laws are printed abroad, not locally,” he said.
Hosein provided a breakdown of the costs associated with printing the revised 2006 edition of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago and subsequent supplements.
The 2006 edition, printed in 2007, cost $13 million.
The first supplement, issued in 2010, cost $2.8 million, followed by a second supplement in 2012 costing $3 million.
The third supplement in 2014 cost $1.82 million, while the fourth in 2015 cost $1.85 million.
The fifth supplement, printed in 2019, cost $1.9 million.
In total, the printing of the revised laws and supplements has cost taxpayers approximately $24.37 million.
“So this simple amendment could save taxpayers several million dollars,” Hosein said, adding that printed copies will now be produced locally.
He also said access to legal information has evolved significantly for legal practitioners, courts and public institutions.
“Online platforms provide the average citizen with free access to timely information at their fingertips, including the internet and ChatGPT—though I don’t encourage that,” Hosein said.
Opposition Senator Faris Al-Rawi, SC, said the Opposition supported the bill but warned that legal risks remained.
He said the Government could face court challenges if certain issues were not addressed, noting that past legislative changes had faced similar challenges, including from former UNC officials.
Independent Senator Anthony Vieira, SC, also supported the measure but pointed out that printed materials do not depend on electricity or digital devices.
He said printed texts also allow for deeper reading compared with the tendency to skim digital material.
However, Vieira acknowledged that the bill has significant benefits, including reducing the need for people to purchase updated volumes and lowering the risk of errors.
