The state of Jamaica’s legislative record-keeping came under fire in Parliament on Tuesday when Opposition Leader Mark Golding revealed that updated versions of several amended laws cannot be found on the official parliamentary website, making it difficult for legislators and the public to track changes to legislation.

Golding raised the issue while contributing to debate on amendments to the Financial Administration Act, telling the House that his own attempts to review the law exposed serious shortcomings in how Parliament publishes and maintains its legislative records.

He said the problem became apparent when he tried to examine amendments to existing legislation, only to discover that the relevant Acts were either missing or outdated on Parliament’s website.

“When I received the Bill, it was in long form and it’s an amending Bill. I wanted to see the principal Act to understand what was being changed. I tried on Parliament’s website to find a complete, up-to-date copy of the Financial Administration Act or even the legislation that introduced this fund. Neither was available,” Golding told the House.

According to the Opposition leader, the absence of updated legislation made it nearly impossible to properly analyse the Bill being debated, forcing him to seek documents elsewhere.

“I checked the Parliament website and it was not there. I checked the Ministry of Justice website, and it was not there either,” Golding said.

He explained that the Ministry of Justice’s website only carries revised laws that have gone through a formal law revision process — a technical exercise that can take years to complete. As a result, recently passed legislation, including key amendments from 2024 and 2025, remains unavailable to lawmakers and the public.

“Because so many of the legislation that we pass are amending, so you are changing this and changing that and it’s almost like creating a puzzle and making sure all the pieces of the puzzle are properly configured in the amending pages. So, they haven’t reached 2024 yet and you can’t find any legislation on the Ministry of Justice’s website for 2024 as much as 2025, or 2026. So, I was at a loss,” claimed Golding.

He said he was eventually forced to contact the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel directly to obtain copies of the legislation needed to participate meaningfully in the debate.

The Opposition leader described the situation as unacceptable, warning that the lack of accessible and up-to-date laws undermines transparency, accountability and the rule of law.

“This is not good enough…Our laws are important, access to our laws are fundamental to the rule of law in the country and I really think we need to do better and the necessary human or other resources need to be put in place to ensure that the website of Parliament has all Bills and all Acts that have been tabled or passed in this Parliament on a current basis,” said Golding.

He added that the problem was not new and had persisted for years, despite repeated complaints.

“Too often, I have to be emailing Parliament and I’m told it’s not yet done. It is a chaotic and chaka-chaka system of running the legislative side of Parliament,” he said.

Golding also stressed that the issue was not one of limited resources but rather a lack of priority.

“I had to raise that today, Mr Speaker, because I think these are not resource-constrained things. This is just a question of putting a little bit of effort and priority behind it because it is important and it is very important that we do that,” he added.

He warned that the absence of accessible legislation affects not only Members of Parliament, but lawyers, businesses, researchers and ordinary citizens who rely on accurate legal information to understand their rights and obligations.