Saint Helena

• The Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Constitution Order of 2009, the highest local law
• Laws made by the Legislative Council, and English common law
• Decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal

• The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, the final court
• The Court of Appeal
• The Supreme Court, the Magistrate's Court and the Small Claims Court

A law degree and admission through the English or another Commonwealth route. Few lawyers live on the island.

• One legal system covers three separate islands far apart in the South Atlantic.
• Judges visit from overseas, and cases are often heard by a Magistrate.
• Saint Helena was the place of Napoleon's exile.

Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, United Kingdom, Bermuda, Pitcairn Islands

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Saint Helena as: Common law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
• Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.