Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2021)

Castries Cemetery By-Law

(Gazette 2 March 1900, S.I. 2/1926, and 17/1950)

Gazette 2 March 1900

Amended by S.I. 2/1926, 17/1950

ARRANGEMENT OF REGULATIONS

CASTRIES CEMETERY BY-LAW

Commencement [14 July 1899]

1.   Citation

This By-Law may be cited as the Castries Cemetery By-Law.

2.   Definitions

In this By-Law, unless the context otherwise requires—

“Director of Finance and Planning” means the Director of Finance and Planning or any person acting for him or her;

“constable” means any police or rural constable;

“Cemetery” means the cemetery vested in the Castries Corporation by the Castries Cemetery Act;

“Cemetery Committee” means such of their members to whom the Castries Corporation may from time to time delegate their power to control and manage the Cemetery;

“grave” means an un-walled excavation in the earth for the interment of a corpse;

“head constable” means the head constable of the Town Constabulary or any person acting for him or her;

“monument” shall include any tomb, vault, headstone, cross, railing or enclosure erected on any piece of land the fee simple of which shall have been purchased;

“pauper” means any person for the interment of whose body application shall be made to the Cemetery Committee in writing by a person duly authorised to make the same under section 2 of the Castries Cemetery Act;

“Town Clerk” means the Town Clerk of Castries or any person acting for him or her;

“vault” means a walled excavation or chamber of any kind for purposes of interment.

GENERAL

3.

1.  

   The public cemetery for Castries as described in section 3 of the Castries Cemetery Act shall be known as the Choc Bay Cemetery.

4.

1.  

   The immediate management and control of the Cemetery shall be by the Cemetery Committee of the Castries Corporation to whom all communications or complaints in connection with the said Cemetery should be addressed through the Town Clerk.

5.

1.  

   (1)   The Corporation shall appoint an officer and shall fix his or her salary to execute the orders of the Cemetery Committee and to be specially charged with the carrying out and enforcement of the regulations for the control and management of the Cemetery.

1.  

   (2)   The officer shall be called the Keeper of the Cemetery.

1.  

   (3)   He or she shall be in attendance thereat daily throughout the year from 7:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., or later, if required for purposes of interment, or in the event of the Cemetery Committee giving special permission for burials to take place at other hours, should they think fit.

1.  

   (4)   He or she shall receive and obey all orders from the Cemetery Committee through the Town Clerk or from any person appointed by them for that purpose for the opening of graves.

1.  

   (5)   He or she shall be furnished with a plan or chart of the Cemetery, corresponding exactly with that in the office of the Head Constable, and shall upon receiving instructions from him or her to open a grave see that he or she understands exactly the location of the grave to be opened and give the necessary orders to have the grave dug in the proper place ready for the reception of the body at the time stated for the interment.

1.  

   (6)   He or she shall keep a register into which he or she shall, prior to the arrival of the body at the Cemetery, enter all the particulars required to be transmitted to him or her by the Head Constable, and he or she shall see that every such entry is signed by at least 2 witnesses of the interment.

1.  

   (7)   He or she shall allow free access to all books, plans, papers or property belonging to the Corporation, to all persons authorised by the Cemetery Committee to examine the same, and he or she shall furnish to all or any person or persons who may require them and who may apply to him or her for that purpose certified extracts from the books, and shall be allowed to charge twenty-four cents for each such extract to the person or persons requiring the same, to be paid to him or her for his or her own use.

1.  

   (8)   He or she shall be present at all funerals and shall see that graves are of the required width and depth, that coffins are properly interred, and that graves are efficiently filled up.

1.  

   (9)   He or she is responsible for cleaning and keeping clean and in good order the Cemetery walks and avenues as also the enclosures thereof and shall supervise the planting and maintenance of all trees, shrubs, and plants which the Cemetery Committee may authorise to be planted in the Cemetery.

1.  

   (10)   He or she shall have charge of all buildings and property of every description at the Cemetery whether belonging to or in the custody of the Castries Corporation, and shall be held accountable for any damage to or loss of the same.

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   (11)   He or she shall see that all visitors to the Cemetery comport themselves with decorum and are decently clothed.

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   (12)   He or she shall regulate the movements of hearses, carriages, and funeral processions inside the Cemetery.

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   (13)   He or she shall supervise the work of all labourers employed in any capacity whatsoever at the Cemetery by order of the Cemetery Committee; he or she is responsible for the proper performance of their work, and he or she shall make up pay lists detailing the nature of the work done by each such labourer, the number of days he or she has been employed, and the rate of pay per day to which he or she is entitled, and shall send in such list duly certified to the Town Clerk not later than noon on Friday in each week.

1.  

   (14)   He or she shall generally carry out all instructions which he or she may receive from the Cemetery Committee through the Town Clerk.

6.

1.  

   (1)   All applications for interments in the Cemetery are to be made to the head constable at the Town Constabulary Station, Castries, who, upon the receipt of a fee according to the scale hereinafter provided, shall issue from a consecutively paged or numbered book a receipt for the same, which shall state the amount received, and shall indicate the section of the Cemetery and the number of the grave or vault in respect of which the receipt is granted, as also the hour at which it is intended to present the body at the Cemetery for burial.

1.  

   (2)   The Head Constable shall be furnished with a plan or chart of the Cemetery upon which the grave plots are numbered, and he or she shall, under instructions from the Cemetery Committee, allot such grave plots to applicants, stating on the receipt issued the number and position in the Cemetery of such grave plot. This receipt must be produced to the Keeper of the Cemetery at the time of the presentation of the corpse for interment for purposes of identification.

1.  

   (3)   He or she shall in no case, unless specially instructed to that effect by the Cemetery Committee, allow any applicant to select a grave plot in any part of the Cemetery.

1.  

   (4)   He or she shall at the same time obtain from the applicant and shall inscribe in a book to be kept for that purpose at the Constabulary Station a statement of the name, sex, age, description, birth-place, and date of the death of the person to be interred.

1.  

   (5)   He or she shall immediately after issuing the receipt communicate by telephone all the information contained on the counterfoil of his or her Receipt book, as well as the particulars of the statement furnished under the preceding section to the Keeper of the Cemetery who shall confirm reception of the information by repeating the message.

1.  

   (6)   He or she shall at 2:00 p.m. every day except Sundays and whole holidays pay to the Director of Finance and Planning all monies which he or she may have in his or her possession as payments for graves at the Cemetery and obtain a receipt for the same to the credit of the Cemetery account of the Castries Town Fund.

7.

1.  

   The Town Clerk every day shall check the Head Constable's Receipt and Cash book with the receipts issued to him or her by the Director of Finance and Planning and shall also examine the Registers of Interments and see that they are properly kept.

8.

1.  

   In the case of Pauper interments the same procedure must be followed as for other interments except that the application for opening a grave shall be in writing to the Cemetery Committee through the Town Clerk and signed by a person legally authorised under section 2 of the Castries Cemetery Act to make the same, and shall state, in addition to the particulars required in respect of other interments, the name of the locality or Public Institution at which the person to be interred was at the time of death. Prepayment shall in such cases not be demanded but a receipt in which no amount shall be stated shall be issued as an acknowledgment of the application, and of the furnishing of the particulars required for purposes of identification.

9.

1.  

   The Town Clerk shall every month send an account vouched by the written applications as aforesaid to the Head of the Department of Government from which such applications emanated and shall see that a fee of $4 in respect of every pauper buried in terms of such applications is paid to the Director of Finance and Planning and by him or her placed to the credit of the Cemetery account of the Town Fund.

10.

1.  

   Interments in respect of which receipts have been issued by the Head Constable may take place at any time the Cemetery is open, if at least 4 hours elapses between the granting of the receipt and the presentation of the body at the Cemetery for interment.

11.

1.  

   The western side of the Cemetery from the outer gate opposite the road to the Vigie commonly known as “The Straight” to the northern boundary of the Cemetery and of a width in an Easterly direction sufficiently to constitute one quarter of the total area of the Cemetery, shall be the place of burial for paupers dying outside the limits of the City.

12.

1.  

   A grave shall not be less than 6 feet in depth.

13.

1.  

   A grave shall not be cased or lined with any kind of mason work.

14.

1.  

   A person desiring to acquire the ownership of any piece of land in the Cemetery for the purpose of building over a grave, or of forming a family vault, or of erecting an enclosure for a grave or for a certain number of graves, shall in each and every case apply to the Cemetery Committee through the Town Clerk in writing, describing the situation and extent of the land required, and shall accompany the application with a tender of the price of such piece of land according to the scale hereinafter set out, and the Cemetery Committee shall, if they see no objection, grant the applicant the fee simple of such piece of land, and a certificate from the Town Clerk, countersigned by the Chairman of the Corporation, shall be issued to the applicant which shall state, besides the amount received, the situation and the extent of the lot granted, and shall constitute a title for the applicant and his or her successors or assigns to the ownership of the said piece of land in perpetuity.

15.

1.  

   The name of the purchaser shall be entered by the Town Clerk in a book to be kept by him or her for the purpose and shall be inscribed on the plans of the Cemetery kept by the Head Constable and the Keeper of the Cemetery respectively. However, if the purchaser of such allotment or his or her heirs fails to enclose the same or any part of the same within 5 years from the date of the purchase, the said purchaser, his or her heirs, successors or assigns shall forfeit all right, title and interest in such piece of land or part thereof, and it shall be lawful for the Corporation to resume the occupation of so much of the land purchased as may not have been employed, enclosed, or made use of for purposes of interment, and in the case of the enclosure or monument on any such allotment being allowed to go to ruin and decay, or of the said allotment not being kept clean and free from weeds, the Cemetery Committee shall call upon the purchaser or his or her heirs or assigns to repair in a manner satisfactory to the Committee such ruin or decay or to clean and weed such allotment, and in the event of their failing to do so within 3 months of being so called upon, the Corporation may enter in and have the same repaired or cleaned and the cost occasioned thereby shall be recovered against the purchaser or his or her heirs or assigns, should they be known.

16.

1.  

   A person shall not build or erect any vault, tomb, headstone, monument, cross or railing, in any spot in the Cemetery the ownership of which has not been acquired, except by permission of the Cemetery Committee. Previously to any such monument or enclosure being set up on any spot in the Cemetery of which the ownership has been acquired a statement of the design and material of such monument or enclosure and of the terms of any inscription which it may be intended to affix thereto shall be submitted to the Cemetery Committee, and no work shall be commenced on such monument until the Committee has approved in writing of such design or inscription.

17.

1.  

   A person shall not plant any tree or shrub or sow any seed in any part of the Cemetery of which the ownership has not been acquired and only on a spot so acquired after having obtained the permission of the Cemetery Committee. Nor shall any person deposit any flower vase or any other object whatsoever, excepting wreaths and floral tributes, upon or dig or weed any grave not purchased as aforesaid without the permission of the Keeper.

18.

1.  

   The Keeper of the Cemetery may permit carts to enter the Cemetery during the hours that it shall be officially open for the purpose of conveying materials for erecting or repairing tombs, tablets, railing, or for constructing, opening or repairing vaults, or for the removal of any such materials.

19.

1.  

   A person shall not leave any litter or deposit any filth within the Cemetery nor shall use any stone, sand, or soil thereof for any purpose of construction.

20.

1.  

   The Cemetery Committee may on application from any duly authorised person allow any body buried in the Cemetery to be exhumed and be removed therefrom under such precautions as they think necessary.

21.

1.  

   An owner of a lot in the Cemetery shall not, by him or herself or through any agent, open any vault or tomb, cause to be dug any grave, or to be removed any such vault, tomb, railing, tablet, monument or inscription, without first obtaining the permission of the Cemetery Committee.

22.

1.  

   No live stock of any description shall be allowed to be tethered or to be at large in the Cemetery.

23.

1.  

   Every person who within the Cemetery Ground—

   1.  

      (a)     behaves in a disorderly manner;

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      (b)     plucks the fruit or flowers;

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      (c)     injures any trees, shrubs or plants;

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      (d)     walks over or tampers with any grave not his or her property; or

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      (e)     in any way injures any grave or any monument, tomb, vault, headstone, cross, or railings,

1.  

   is liable to the punishment provided for under section 10 of the Castries Cemetery Act.

24.

1.  

   A person found in the Cemetery at any time other than the hours during which it is open to the public commits wilful trespass and is liable to be prosecuted.

25.

1.  

   A grave shall not be re-opened for an interment until the expiration of at least 5 years from the date of the last preceding interment.

26.

1.  

   (1)   Every corpse interred in any vault shall be entombed in a single chamber in an air-tight manner, that is, by properly cemented stone, brick, or other mason work.

1.  

   (2)   The chamber shall not be re-opened for purposes of interment until after the expiration of at least 2 years from the date of the last preceding interment in such chamber.

1.  

   (3)   Every application for the re-opening of any such chamber shall be made in writing to the Cemetery Committee through the Town Clerk.

27.

1.  

   The fee for opening a grave at the Cemetery is $6 and for permission to open a vault for purposes of interment $0.96.

28.

1.  

   The price to be paid for acquiring the ownership of land at the Cemetery is—

   	$ ¢
   To the South of the main avenue per square foot, superficial measure	36
   At any other place, per square foot, superficial measure	24

29.

1.  

   A quantity of land less than 8 feet by 3 feet will not be sold except for an addition to land already acquired.

PROCEDURE

30.

1.  

   (1)   The procedure under this By-Law where not herein or otherwise already provided is the same as the procedure in force in respect of offences punishable on summary conviction.

1.  

   (2)   It is sufficient to state that an offence is committed in Castries, though the same was actually committed beyond the limits of the City, if the offence was committed within the jurisdiction of the Corporation.