01Understand
Start with the rule.
Read the clause, its exceptions and what the courts have decided.
- The clause↓
- Legal checks↓
- Local effect
Start here
The authority is Saint Lucian. Some of the changing content comes from England.
Article 917A is a rule of Saint Lucian law. In three fields, it points to the law of England “for the time being.” That reference can bring in later English statutes as well as rules developed by English courts.
In Hilaire v Chastanet, the Privy Council confirmed that mechanism in 2023 and rejected the constitutional challenge before it. Saint Lucia’s Parliament retains the power to change or repeal the clause. The decision establishes legal validity. It does not settle whether the system is easy to understand, well suited to local life or the best way to govern future change.
Hilaire v Chastanet [2023] UKPC 22 ↗Research finding
Our central finding: stopping automatic foreign updating and rewriting the substance of private law are two different jobs. Saint Lucia can preserve useful rules while taking responsibility for how they change.
A visual explanation
Follow a rule from its source to a local dispute.
Domestic authoritySaint Lucian lawConstitution · Code · Acts
Domestic rules
External sourceLaw of EnglandRelevant statutes + judicial rules
Article 917A selects
The legal checks
Each boundary matters.
Select a check to see what it asks.
Source & version
What precise provision or judicial rule is relied on? Hilaire selects relevant English common law and Acts in force in England when the matter is tried. This source-selection rule does not settle every retroactivity question. A statutory title is not proof that all its sections or delegated instruments apply in Saint Lucia.
Read all six checks and their sources →The right source version and timing must also be established. These checks guide the legal analysis; courts determine the rule that applies to the facts.
Apply to the facts
The disputeThe rule that governs hereCourts decide the effect of the combined legal sources.
Try a legal issue
Choose an example to highlight a relevant check.Example 01Potential reception
Hilaire confirmed that relevant parts of England’s Defamation Act 2013 could operate through Article 917A. The court still had to address local provisions and adaptation. That does not receive every part of every English Act.
Hilaire v Chastanet [2023] UKPC 22 ↗Explore the evidence and the choices
From an independence question to actual draft law.
02Investigate
Recover the unfinished work.
Follow the Canadian-supported reform project through the surviving records.
- The project↓
- The records↓
- The lessons
03Scrutinise
Test a concrete replacement.
Examine the model bills, the transition and their use in hypothetical disputes.
- The design↓
- The clauses↓
- The cases
The intellectual starting point
Independence carries a duty to maintain the law.
Anthony’s challenge
Kenny D. Anthony asks who takes responsibility for Saint Lucia’s legal future. His interview connects sovereignty to identity, legal education, public access and the practical work of reform.
The strongest version of his argument is not that every foreign idea is suspect. It is that Saint Lucia should choose consciously, learn comparatively and maintain the institutions needed to turn that choice into working law.
NationBeat interview ↗Where this research goes further
A state may have the legal power to reject an imported rule yet lack the people, information or time to assess it. England can set a new default; Saint Lucian institutions must discover its local effect.
The real policy test is therefore practical: who identifies a change, checks it, explains it, pays for that work and acts when a rule needs repair?
Read Paper 1’s full analysis →Sovereignty includes the ability to understand, choose and maintain the rules that govern everyday life.
SLPA research synthesis.
A reusable policy test
Ten questions reveal who controls a changing rule.
This audit from Paper 1 applies beyond Article 917A. Use it when a local rule depends on an external legislature, court, regulator or standard.
Open the Sovereign-Law Update Audit
| Question | What to establish |
|---|---|
| Source | Who produces the incoming rule? |
| Activation | Which domestic legal provision gives it effect? |
| Voice | What opportunity did Saint Lucia have to influence the decision? |
| Scope | Which issues, people and exceptions are covered? |
| Notice | Can the public find the operative rule and its version? |
| Fit | Which local conditions, rights and costs have been examined? |
| Adaptation | Who may make necessary changes, and within what legal limits? |
| Override | Who can correct an unsuitable rule, and how? |
| Time | Which version governs earlier events, current contracts and pending cases? |
| Maintenance | Who owns the research, publication, funding and review? |
Passing these design questions does not itself make a rule law. The audit helps expose the decisions and institutional work that a legal framework needs.
Read the theoretical argument and comparative evidence →The current SLPA proposal
Preserve continuity. Put future choices in local hands.
SLPA proposal
Two jobs. One coordinated transition.
MODEL BILL APreserve law.
Preserve law.
Govern future updates.
- Keep the operative law
Preserve actually applicable received law, including rules not yet listed or litigated locally.
- Change the update rule
End future automatic English updating through five specified references. Parliament legislates; courts retain their lawful role.
- Make the law easier to find
A public register records the law. Its entries do not create or erase rights.
MODEL BILL BWrite the first
Write the first
contract module.
- Set out performance duties
Cover honest performance, cooperation, notices and opportunities to cure a failure.
- Clarify the remedies
Address termination, compensation, agreed payments and interruptions such as impossibility.
- Manage the transition
Mainly apply the module to covered new contracts after commencement, while preserving surrounding law.
The five-reference cut-off has a defined scope. Separate trust and proof routes remain. The full bills set out the exceptions and transition rules.
Read the proposal’s scope and transition
The first model package would preserve the law actually operating through five specified references to England. A rule would not disappear because researchers had not yet found it, or because no local case had mentioned it.
Future English developments would remain available for learning. They would not acquire automatic effect through those references. Parliament would make substantive statutory changes under the proposed process. Saint Lucian courts would retain their lawful role in interpretation and judicial development.
A separate contract module would set out performance and remedies for covered new contracts. It deals with honest performance, notices, cure, termination, compensation, agreed payments and interruptions such as impossibility. It also preserves important surrounding law.
5specified reception references in the first bill
72proposed sections across two bills
241article identifiers in the core Code audit
30hypothetical disputes used to examine the model
Research scope: reception references, proposed sections, Code identifiers and hypothetical disputes.
SLPA proposal
Read the blueprint and its trade-offs →The register would record law, not make it. Omitting a valid rule must not erase someone’s claim. Adding a candidate source must not create one. This is a substantive improvement on the earlier series’ more restrictive preservation suggestion.
Beyond the legal doctrine
A law-reform project must survive its own implementation.
Economics: find the hidden cost
Borrowing legal developments can save drafting effort. It can also move costs into research, litigation and uncertainty. The right comparison counts both the cost of writing law and the cost of finding out what the law is.
Business: manage the transition
A new rule changes the terms under which people plan, price and invest. Old contracts, deposits and pending claims need explicit treatment. A clearer future rule is not enough if the route into it is uncertain.
Public policy: assign the unfinished work
The Canadian-supported project left substantive research. Recovering a report is only the start. Someone must own decisions, reconcile later law, prepare a complete package and sustain publication, training and review.
A connected legislative project
The same responsibility reaches maritime law.
SLPA’s new Maritime Act study applies deliberate preservation, controlled updating and practical implementation to another major legal system. It examines Saint Lucia’s existing Shipping Act, treaty obligations, operating procedures and local incidents, including Anse Cochon.
The first model Bill contains 140 clauses and eight schedules. It preserves existing technical and commercial protections while proposing clearer regulatory responsibility, independent investigation and readiness conditions for new duties.
Explore the Maritime Act proposal and download the full research →Questions worth asking before reform.
Does every British law become Saint Lucian law?
No. Article 917A selects relevant law of England in contract, quasi-contract and tort, subject to exclusions, local statutory priority, timing and necessary adaptation. It is not a rule for every UK law or every legal gap.
Does Saint Lucia already have its own law books?
Yes. Saint Lucia has a Constitution, a Civil Code, other Acts and domestic case law. The question is how selected parts of that law are supplied and updated. Replacing Article 917A does not require inventing all private law again.
Was Kenny Anthony calling for legal isolation?
His argument supports national choice and the capacity to maintain law. He also calls for comparative legal learning. SLPA develops that principle into its own proposals; the model bills should not be attributed to him.
Is the new legislation on this site already law?
No. These are independently prepared research models by Kevin L. Michel for scrutiny and revision. They have not been enacted. The package changes specified reception routes and writes one substantive module; it is not a replacement for the whole Civil Code.
Would an old contract suddenly be rewritten?
Under the proposal, ordinarily no. The contract module mainly applies to new Saint Lucian-law contracts after commencement. Existing contracts retain their substantive framework, while the separate reception cut-off would cap future English updating through the specified references.
Can better research tools finish what an earlier project could not?
They make source discovery, comparison and drafting more feasible. They cannot choose contested rights for the public, authenticate every source, supply a court’s judgment, fund implementation or pass an Act. The research now supplies concrete drafts for those human and institutional decisions.
The full body of work
Four papers. One developing research programme.
The first paper examined authority and design. The second mapped reception and its legal limits. The third investigated the earlier reform programme. The fourth audited current law and drafted a replacement mechanism with a first contract module.
All four are now readable on this site. The original PDFs remain available alongside the annotated legislation, case evaluation and source workbook.
Paper 1
Who Makes Saint Lucia’s Law?
The sovereignty question and the institutions needed to govern legal change.
Read the full paperPaper 2
The Law That Moves
How Article 917A operates, what Hilaire decided and where the limits lie.
Read the full paperPaper 3
The Civil Code Reform That Got Away
The surviving evidence from an earlier reform programme and the work left to do.
Read the full paperPaper 4 · Current proposal
Replacing Article 917A
The source audit, preservation framework and first contract performance and remedies module.
Read the full paperPaper 4 develops the current proposal. Earlier papers remain available as the record of how the research evolved.
The interview that helped begin the series
Read and search the full time-coded transcript.
The working NationBeat transcript was supplied to SLPA with permission. It preserves the interview’s sequence and timestamps. Automated transcription can mishear names and article numbers; use the linked original recording to check a passage before quoting it.
Archival working transcriptAbout 75 minutes · 167 time-coded passages · 10,986 words
Download plain text Open the searchable full transcriptLoads only when opened
Enter at least two characters. The archival wording is searched exactly as supplied, including transcription errors.
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A visible line between evidence and proposals.
Primary-law findings, historical records, reasoned interpretations and proposed changes are identified separately. The inventory is systematic within its declared bounds. It does not certify that every English source has been received or that every unreported decision has been located.
The current model has not undergone a commissioned Saint Lucian practitioner-panel review or public consultation. Its value is that the text, source trail and difficult cases can now be examined together.
Read the search method and publication notes →