CASTRIES, St Lucia — The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has ordered the Government of Saint Lucia to pay nearly EC$3 million in damages in a landmark St Lucia unlawful detention case that the court found reflected prolonged and systemic constitutional failure. The ruling, delivered on April 28, 2026, by Justice Alvin Pariagsingh, found that Anthony Henry and Francis Noel were stripped of their right to personal liberty after being held for decades without the legal safeguards, periodic reviews, and psychiatric care required by law.
Henry, who spent approximately 24 years in detention, was awarded EC$1.25 million in compensatory damages and EC$100,000 in vindicatory damages. Noel, who endured more than 32 years behind bars, was awarded EC$1.5 million in compensatory damages and EC$120,000 in vindicatory damages.
Court finds men were forgotten in the system
The judgment follows earlier findings by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which had already ruled the detentions unconstitutional and remitted the matter to the High Court for the assessment of damages. Justice Pariagsingh said the case extended far beyond a procedural lapse, describing it instead as a deep institutional breakdown in which both claimants were, in his words, “forgotten within the criminal justice system for decades.”
Evidence before the court showed that both men had been detained after being deemed unfit to plead, a legal status that should have triggered a structured regime of psychiatric care, periodic review, and therapeutic management. The State, however, failed to put in place the legal and medical structures necessary to lawfully manage their detention, treatment, and rehabilitation.
The court found that Henry and Noel were held in prison-like conditions without proper therapeutic programmes, meaningful review mechanisms, or adequate psychiatric care aligned with the legal framework governing persons found unfit to stand trial. While some medical attention was eventually provided, particularly after 2003, the court ruled that it still fell materially short of a lawful system of treatment and oversight, leaving both men without the rehabilitative environment the Constitution required.
Damages assessed against severity of harm
Justice Pariagsingh acknowledged that, given the severity of their mental illnesses, both men would in all likelihood have remained in secure psychiatric detention even if the State had acted lawfully throughout. The constitutional harm, the court stressed, lay in the stark gap between the lawful therapeutic detention they were entitled to and the harsh prison conditions they actually endured for decades.
In assessing damages, the judge rejected the claimants’ multi-million-dollar calculations based on daily detention rates, finding that such formulas could not capture the qualitative nature of constitutional injury. The court also rejected the State’s significantly lower proposed figures, ruling that they understated the gravity of the violations and the duration of harm.
Instead, the court assessed damages in the round, weighing the extraordinary length of the detention, the systemic nature of the failures, the conditions endured, and the uncertainty over what lawful treatment might have looked like had the State acted properly. The judge said this approach better reflected the human and constitutional dimensions of the case than any arithmetic formula.
The court awarded additional vindicatory damages to reflect the constitutional significance of the breaches and to publicly denounce what the judge described as sustained institutional failures by the State. Vindicatory damages, the ruling affirmed, serve to mark the seriousness of the violation and to deter future breaches by State authorities. The Government was further ordered to pay interest on the awards at a statutory rate of six percent per annum from the date of judgment until payment, along with the claimants’ legal costs.
Constitutional benchmark set by St Lucia unlawful detention case
The judgment is expected to rank among the most significant constitutional rulings in Saint Lucia’s legal history, given both the unprecedented length of detention and the severity of the systemic failures identified. It places renewed pressure on authorities to overhaul the legal and psychiatric framework governing persons declared unfit to plead, an area the court found to be dangerously deficient for years.
The ruling carries implications well beyond Henry and Noel. It signals that other persons detained under similar circumstances may have constitutional grounds to seek redress, and exposes the State to potential further claims if the underlying framework remains unreformed. Mental health advocates are likely to view the decision as long-overdue judicial recognition of a vulnerable population whose rights were ignored for generations.
For Henry and Noel, the ruling marks a long-delayed measure of redress after decades during which, as the court found, the protections owed to them under the Constitution were never delivered.
