{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/st-helena-ascension-and-tristan-da-cunha-constitution-order-2009/schedule/paragraph-115",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/st-helena-ascension-and-tristan-da-cunha-constitution-order-2009/schedule/paragraph-115.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2009/1751",
  "legislation_title": "The St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Constitution Order 2009",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/st-helena-ascension-and-tristan-da-cunha-constitution-order-2009",
  "path": "schedule/paragraph/115",
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "number": "115",
  "heading": "Interpretation",
  "text": "In this Chapter, unless it is otherwise provided or required by the context—\n“Ascension” means Ascension Island;\n“breach”, in relation to any provision of this Chapter, includes a failure to comply with that provision, and cognate expressions shall be construed accordingly;\n“Consolidated Fund” means the Fund established by section 98;\n“court” means any subordinate court, the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal, and includes Her Majesty in Council;\n“disciplinary law”, in relation to a disciplined force, means the law regulating the discipline of that force;\n“disciplinary offence” means an offence against the disciplinary law;\n“disciplined force” means any police force of St Helena, any prison service of St Helena, any fire service of St Helena, any naval, military or air force raised in St Helena under the law of St Helena, or any visiting force;\n“financial year” means the period of twelve months beginning on the first day of April in any year or such other day as the Legislature may prescribe;\n“functions” include powers and duties;\n“Gazette” means the St Helena Government Gazette;\n“judge” means the Chief Justice or another judge of the Supreme Court, the President of the Court of Appeal, a Justice of Appeal, an acting judge of the Supreme Court, or an Acting Justice of Appeal;\n“judicial officer” means a justice of the peace, a judge of a subordinate court, a Coroner or other person who is authorised to exercise the powers of a judge of a subordinate court;\n“law” means law in force in St Helena, and includes an Ordinance, and any instrument made under an Ordinance, and any other instrument having the force of law and any unwritten rule of law, and “lawful” and “lawfully” shall be construed accordingly;\n“legal representative” means a person who—\n(a)is entitled to practise before the court or other tribunal or authority exercising jurisdiction or power in respect of a person who is arrested, detained, or charged with a criminal offence or is a party to any other proceeding; and\n(b)has an effective opportunity to represent that person—\n(i)by appearing before that court or other tribunal or authority at the hearing of the proceeding or the process through which it is exercising that jurisdiction or power, in St Helena or in any place outside St Helena where it may lawfully sit; or\n(ii)in the case of a proceeding in the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal when sitting in a place outside St Helena, by participating in that proceeding by teleconference or other means of electronic, oral or written communication;\n“meeting”, in relation to the Legislative Council, means the sitting or sittings of the Council commencing when the Council first meets at a time and place determined or appointed under section 61 and terminating when the Council is adjourned sine die or to a time and place so determined or appointed for a subsequent meeting, or is dissolved;\n“member”, in relation to a disciplined force, includes any person who, under the disciplinary law, is subject to that discipline;\n“minor” means a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years or such other age as may be prescribed for the purposes of this Chapter by any other law;\n“officer of the St Helena Public Service” means the holder of any office in the St Helena Public Service and any other employee of the Public Service (except a casual worker), and includes a person appointed to act as an officer of the St Helena Public Service;\n“Ordinance” means a law made by a Legislature in and for St Helena;\n“period of public emergency” means any period during which—\n(a)there is, in or affecting St Helena, a war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation; and\n(b)a proclamation of a state of emergency is in force under a law;\n“St Helena Public Service” means the service of the Crown in a civil capacity in respect of the government of St Helena, and includes service as a member of any police force, prison service or fire service of St Helena; but does not include service as a judge, a judicial officer or a Complaints Commissioner, or service as a member of the Legislative Council, a Council Committee, the Executive Council, the Judicial Service Commission, the Public Accounts Committee, the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy or, unless otherwise provided by a law, of any other public authority;\n“St Helenian status” means St Helenian status as provided for under the Immigration Control Ordinance or any Ordinance amending or replacing that Ordinance;\n“sitting”, in relation to the Legislative Council, means a period during which the Council is sitting continuously without adjournment and includes any period during which the Council is in committee of the whole, and “sitting day” shall be construed accordingly;\n“subordinate court” means a court of St Helena subordinate to the Supreme Court that has been established by Ordinance, and includes the exercise of any power or jurisdiction in relation to an inquiry conferred on a Coroner by the Coroners Ordinance or any Ordinance amending or replacing that Ordinance;\n“Tristan da Cunha” means the Island of Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island, Nightingale Island and Inaccessible Island;\n“visiting force” means any naval, military or air force raised in, or under the law of, a country other than St Helena, one or more members of which are lawfully in St Helena while on service in that capacity;\n“wrongfully removed or retained child” means a child under the age of sixteen years who has been wrongfully removed to or retained in the territory of a state that is a contracting party to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, signed at The Hague on 25 October 1980.",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2009/1751/schedule/paragraph/115",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T03:09:37.810912+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}