Today [Mon Jul 4], on this Constitution Day, we reflect on the document that is the supreme law of our Islands and sets the ground rules for the way we are governed in the Cayman Islands.

Today we celebrate our own Constitution, which was first written down in 1959.

Since that date almost 60 years ago the document that governs us has gone through many revisions, with the latest coming in 2009 during the country’s first referendum in which the voters of the Cayman Islands agreed it was time to modernise our Constitution.

In the past 57 years, Cayman has gone from a dependency of Jamaica, to a British crown colony, to an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom.

Constitution Day provides an opportunity to look at that process and better understand where we are today as a society and where we may be heading.

Our first constitution was extremely important because under it Cayman ceased to be a dependency of Jamaica.

In 1962 Jamaica decided to become independent of the Mother Country so we amended our Constitution to reflect that decision. However, the governor of Jamaica was still the governor of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica provided certain essential services for Cayman, such as medical and prison facilities.

It was then that our forefathers began to ponder as to what exactly Cayman’s constitutional position should be.

The ultimate decision was to make a clean break with Jamaica and move to crown colony status directly with the UK government.

The Cayman Islands made a significant advancement toward internal self-government through the Constitution of 1972.

That is a Constitution we lived with for many years, but one that did not give us as much latitude as we needed to help ensure a future, modern Cayman Islands.

So after many years of contemplation and discussion, the 2009 modernised Constitution, which was shepherded in the main by the PPM Administration, went into effect in November 2009.

The decision of the new modernised Constitution created a great deal of frustration on all sides dealing with the issue, but in the end the hard work ultimately resulted in a good document; a document that establishes a new and modern framework for our system of governance; a document that improves and provides constitutional protection for human rights; one that allows greater involvement of the elected government in all the affairs of the country; and one that requires the Governor and the United Kingdom to have careful regard to the interest of these Islands in exercising their role in relation to the affairs of this country.

It’s a Constitution that provides a framework for the modern Cayman; one that builds on the foundations of previous constitutions—both the 1959 and 1972 Constitutions—and one that should provide a proper basis of Cayman’s continued evolution as a modern state.

Our history has shown that our Constitution is indeed a living document.

Going back to 1959, Commissioner Allen H. Donald summed up the changes made from the understood Constitution to the written document. He said, “The Constitution is not, and is not meant to be, the last word; but is a big step into the mainstream of modern constitutional practice.”

Those words ring just as true today as they did then.

Our Constitution is the supreme law of our Islands and does set the ground rules for the way we are governed, but it also ensures that those who come after us have a document that can evolve and keep pace with the changing times.