The idea is to provide a sort of legal agony aunt and deal with questions that anyone can ring in or email to me.

As lawyers can be somewhat boring and things they write turgid I have tried to lighten it in places!  Question two of course addresses an Ascension Island issue.

Question: My neighbour is always playing music much too loud.  - Is there anything I can do to stop him as he ignores me if I ask nicely?

Answer: We should all take being a Good Neighbour seriously and the law certainly does.  There is actually a whole host of things you can do including Committee of Government to assist and a Court to enforce.  In addition there are things that court can do in the way of granting injunctions to order behaviour to stop - in that case the penalty for breaches are severe as it counts as a contempt of court for which the court will always consider custody.    A lot of the law is in the Public Health Ordinance, itself a historical acknowledgement of times and problems past.  If you want to do something about the privies at a school or you catch someone building a house without a toilet or need to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes, or indeed if you generally have it in for Bakehouses then the Public Health Ordinance is the thing for you.  I don’t quite know what Bakehouses have done to deserve ten whole sections devoted to minute details like how often it has to be limewashed but it is all in there and valid law albeit written for different times and problems. 

On the more serious side however the Ordinance also contains a useful system of allowing residents to report people to a Committee, which can issue an “abatement notice” basically saying “you are causing a nuisance and must stop.”   Disobeying this notice can mean a visit to the Magistrates.  Actually by coincidence the day after I got this question a case came up before the Magistrates in St Helena and a fine of £50 was imposed for not obeying an abatement notice and continuing to  play music too loud.  Remember it is not just noise that can be sorted out in this way: smoking chimneys  “any chimney sending forth smoke in such quantity as to be a nui­sance or injurious to health” are specifically mentioned.   It is all very straightforward.  I would hope that most people would have respect for their neighbours and if told, for instance, that their chimney was smoking would do something about it  - like perhaps putting a taller chimney pipe on to carry the smoke away but for those few who cannot out of “love and charity for their neighbours”  be considerate then there is ample action that their neighbour can take to prevent their life being made a misery by “Neighbours from Hell”.

Question: Is it legally possible to have democratically elected representatives who do not have the right of abode? Ascension Island is the only place in the world where this has been applied.

Answer:  The short answer is that it is legally possible for the legislature to say just what the law is and if it chooses to pass an ordinance (as it has here) saying that residents may elect representatives even though neither the voters nor those they vote for have a right of abode then it can.  The long answer would require a constitutional lawyer and probably a book and I will briefly try and explain why.  There is no doubt that Ascension Island is unique and as such unique solutions apply.  In the last “Ask a Lawyer” (published in the Independent) I waxed lyrical on the subject of why constitutions were important and affected each and every one of us and those with an interest in Ascension Island will no doubt look carefully at the proposed draft constitution.  They will see that under the draft constitution quite a few fundamental rights and freedoms are excluded including freedom of movement, protection for private and family life (including rights to free education), protection of the right to marry, protection of freedom of expression and protection of the freedom of assembly and association.  There is of course also the exclusion of the right given to St Helena Islanders to not be deprived of their status but, as the questioner makes clear, there is no right to abide on Ascension Island so this is inevitable.  These exclusions do not mean that Ascension will not get all these but just that under this draft constitution they are not a consititutional right the way they would be, for instance, in St Helena.

 Question: Why does Tungi have prickles?

Answer:  This is one of those questions where you wonder why God, in his infinite wisdom, makes really horrid things like poisonous snakes and Black Widow spiders and can only answer that there must be some infinitely wise explanation.  In the meantime Tungi falls into the category of things that Neil does not like and therefore wants to sue everyone and make them pay heavily.

Then why, you ask as a persistent supplementary questioner, (ask one of your Councillors, perhaps Mervyn, what that one is about) is the Tungi subject to this particular hatred? To answer that one requires a story.   Soon after arriving on the island I went for a walk and wandering down towards Lemon Valley came across a Tungi plant with lots of tempting looking fruit.  “Ah” I said to myself “they make a liquor out of that and therefore it must be edible” which was partly right and partly wrong.  Yes it was edible but not by picking it with a bare hand and taking a bite.  That may persuade you that my wife is probably right when she says I am not safe to be let out alone but on this occasion, like any wise scout, I had my Swiss Army Knife with its hidden away tweezers but also (even wiser than most scouts!) I had taken the precaution of taking my wife Denise with me and she, after calling me an idiot in fairly direct and wonderfully descriptive terms, spent the next hour squinting at my tongue and lip and pulling out dozens of tiny prickles. 

Hence the hatred for Tungi, which I again underestimated on the next walk.  When passing a particularly viscous-looking specimen and my judgement clouded with dark thoughts of revenge, I aimed a walking-boot armed kick at it.  Mistake number two - the Tungi laughed like a drain and its prickles went straight through the leather into my foot.  My boot had to be removed and the prickles extracted (yes you’re right tweezers again at the ready).

I know that doesn’t answer the question but now I have a sort of understanding with Tungi.  I leave it alone rather like a dog that thinks it ought to chase a cat but knows it will be scratched so pretends it does not see it.  Hopefully it also leaves me alone.   So why does it have prickles? Well if you were standing there peacefully enjoying the eternal rain of St Helena and someone came up to you and gave you a bite, might not you become just a little bit prickly too?

Neil Davidson Public Solicitor Ladder Hill Fort.  Telephone 3008.  Keep the questions coming!  Email solicitor@cwimail.sh

I am very much looking forward to my visit and hope to meet as many as possible  - socially if not professionally.  In the meantime if you have any questions for any future “Ask a Lawyer” just email them and I will submit them for publication in The Islander