Government has been ordered to pay $2.97 million in damages to two men who were unlawfully detained in prison for decades after being found unfit to plead, in what the High Court described as one of the most serious constitutional violations in the country’s history.
Justice Alvin Shiva Pariagsingh awarded Anthony Henry $1.25 million in compensatory damages and $100 000 in vindicatory damages, while Francis Noel was awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $120 000 in vindicatory damages. The Attorney General was also ordered to pay costs, with statutory interest of six per cent per annum to apply to the remaining sums until payment is made.
The case returned to the High Court after the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that the men’s constitutional right to personal liberty had been breached.
According to the court, Henry was detained for about 24 years and Noel for more than 32 years under a regime that failed to comply with the statutory and constitutional framework governing persons found unfit to plead. Rather than being placed in an appropriate mental health facility with structured treatment and periodic reviews, the men remained in prison conditions for decades.
Justice Pariagsingh said the breach was not a mere technicality but a “prolonged and systemic failure” by the State.
“The claimants were effectively forgotten within the criminal justice system for decades,” the judge noted, adding that the case was without parallel in Saint Lucia and fell “within the most serious category of constitutional violations”.
The court heard evidence that although both men received some psychiatric care and medication from around 2003 onwards, the treatment fell well short of what the law required.
Evidence showed there was no dedicated psychiatric facility, no structured therapeutic programme, and no meaningful system of periodic review while the men were detained. They were also housed alongside the general prison population for significant periods.
However, the judge rejected the claimants’ argument that they should be compensated as though they had been completely deprived of liberty for the entire period.
The court found that even if the State had acted lawfully, both men would likely still have been detained for significant periods in a secure psychiatric facility because of the seriousness and persistence of their mental illnesses. As a result, damages had to reflect the difference between unlawful prison detention and what would have been lawful therapeutic detention.
In addition to compensatory damages, the court awarded separate vindicatory damages, saying compensation alone was insufficient to reflect the constitutional significance of the breach.
Justice Pariagsingh said the men were particularly vulnerable because, having been found unfit to plead, they depended entirely on the proper functioning of the system to protect their rights.
“This was not an isolated error, but a sustained failure across the relevant institutions to give effect to fundamental rights,” the judge ruled.
The Attorney General is entitled to deduct any interim payments already made to the claimants from the final awards.
I hope something legal is put in place for those two men which guards their financial security otherwise they will no doubt be exploited by various ‘hangers on’ taking advantage of their situation. In some twisted way, they were probably safer in prison (although legally and morally wrong) because of their psychiatric states. There is very, very little mental health care in St Lucia, and if there is no family support many individuals face serious harm, including death either self-inflicted or by other means… I pray those individuals will live the rest of their lives with appropriate care, support and protection.
@ Perspective — you are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.