Saint Lucia

• The Constitution of 1978, the highest law
• The Civil Code, based on the French tradition through the Civil Code of Lower Canada (Quebec), and its Code of Civil Procedure
• English common law and statutes, for public, criminal and commercial law
• Decisions of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and of the Privy Council

• The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, the final court of appeal
• The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court: the Court of Appeal and the High Court
• Magistrates' Courts

A law degree and a legal education certificate, then admission to practise by the High Court.

• It is one of the few mixed systems in the Caribbean, with a civil code beside the common law.
• Its Civil Code was modelled on the Quebec code, which comes from the French Napoleonic tradition.
• Judges trained in common law must apply civil-law concepts, such as those on obligations and property.

Dominica, Grenada, Mauritius, Seychelles, Canada

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Saint Lucia as: Civil law, 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.

Botswana, Cameroon, Cyprus, Guyana, Israel, Lesotho, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, Northern Cyprus, Philippines, Seychelles, South Africa, Sri Lanka.

• Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court
• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
• Constitute Project: constitution of Saint Lucia

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.