- In order that the laws of the Virgin Islands, as set out in the Virgin Islands Code Annotated, may be made and kept as simple, as clear, as concise and as complete as possible, and in order that the amount of construction and interpretation of the statutes required of the courts may be reduced to a minimum, the Office of the Code Revisor shall establish and maintain a system of continuous statute research and correction. To that end the Office of the Code Revisor shall:
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(a) Make a systematic study of the statutes of the Virgin Islands, as set out in the Virgin Islands Code Annotated for the purpose of ascertaining that ambiguities, conflicts, duplications and other imperfections of form and expression exist therein and the ways in which these defects may be corrected;
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(b) Receive, consider and prepare comments and recommendations on proposed changes in the law as recommended by the American Law Institute, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the Virgin Islands Commission on Uniform State Laws, bar associations, judges, lawyers, public officials, or other learned bodies or qualified individuals;
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(c) Prepare for submission to the Legislature bills to correct obvious errors, eliminate inconsistencies, eliminate duplications and laws repealed directly or by implication, eliminate surplus words and modernize language to correspond to modern drafting style, correct defective section structure in the arrangement of the subject matter of existing statutes, correct faulty internal references and clarify existing laws;
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(d) Develop for adoption by the Legislature a uniform system of punctuation, capitalization, numbering and wording;
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(e) Make revisions to the statutes in a manner that preserves the intent, effect and the meaning of the statutes revised and makes no substantive changes;
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(f) Prepare revisions that ensure that the statutory language does not discriminate on the basis of sex, and to the maximum extent feasible, prepare revisions that use gender-neutral nouns and pronouns;
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(g) Identify for repeal by the Legislature provisions that have no legal effect and language that the courts have held to be unconstitutional;
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(h)
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(1) At the close of each regular session of the Legislature, cause to be prepared and published, under contract with a qualified law book publisher, cumulative pocket supplements to each volume of the Virgin Islands Code.
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(A) The supplements must contain all amendments to the Virgin Islands Code and all other laws of a general and permanent nature, the general and permanent laws to be keyed in the supplements to the arrangement in the Code, including any such amendments and laws enacted at any special session of the Legislature.
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(B) The supplements must also contain amendment notes and additional annotations based upon pertinent court decisions, must note the sections of the Code that are repealed by subsequent legislation, and must generally bring the Code up to date.
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(2) Cause to be prepared and published periodically, under contract with a qualified law book publisher, substitute volumes of the Virgin Islands Code, whenever, in the Revisor’s judgment, the increase in the size of any pocket supplement due to the accumulation and mass of the laws and annotations makes further publication of the pocket supplement impracticable.
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(3) Negotiate for and purchase, from time to time, various reprint pamphlets from the Virgin Islands Code, arranged, edited, indexed and printed in a manner and in quantities as it directs, whenever the Revisor receives requests for them from the Governor of the Virgin Islands, or from any department head or other official of the Government of the Virgin Islands which have been approved by the Governor and submitted according to law and regulations.
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(4) Annually cause to be printed and published, under contract with a qualified law publisher, all current session laws of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands. The laws must be printed in slip form as soon as possible after approval thereof by the Governor or after they become law without his approval, and, published in annual Session Laws volumes, with suitable tables and index, as soon as possible after the close of each Regular Session of the Legislature.
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(5) Determine within the limits of appropriations, the quantities of slip laws and volumes to be printed and published.
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(i) Enter into arrangements with other jurisdictions for the exchange of government publications on such terms as may be most advantageous to the Government of the Virgin Islands, and for this purpose is authorized to enter into a contract with any qualified contractor that can provide such exchange services; and
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(j) Do all things necessary to fulfill the purposes of this chapter.
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