Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2021)

22.   Unauthorised disclosure

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   (1)   Subject to the provisions of this Act, any person who, in the course of his or her duties, has, or at any time has had, custody of, or access to, any official record or the information contained therein, commits an offence if, knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that any information he or she had obtained in the course of those duties is specified information, he or she discloses it, otherwise than in the course of those duties, to another person.

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   (2)   In any proceedings for an offence under subsection (1), it shall be a defence for the defendant to show that the disclosure was made—

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      (a)     to the rehabilitated person or to another person at the express request of the rehabilitated person;

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      (b)     to a person whom he or she reasonably believed to be the rehabilitated person or to another person at the express request of a person whom he or she reasonably believed to be the rehabilitated person.

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   (3)   No proceedings for an offence brought under subsection (1) shall be instituted except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

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   (4)   Nothing in subsection (3) shall prevent the arrest, or the issue of a warrant for the arrest of any person in respect of an offence against subsection (1), or the remanding in custody or on bail of any person charged with such offence.

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   (5)   Any person who—

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      (a)     obtains any specified information from any official record by any fraud, dishonesty or any bribe or unlawful means; or

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      (b)     falsifies any specified information on any official record, commits an offence.

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   (6)   For the purposes of this section—

“official record” means any record kept for the purposes of its functions by any court, police force, government department, local or public authority being in either case a record containing information about persons convicted of offences; and

“specified information” means information to the effect that a named or otherwise identifiable rehabilitated living person has committed or has been charged with, or prosecuted for, or convicted of, or sentenced for, an offence which is the subject of a spent or expunged conviction.