BAILIFF Geoffrey Rowland yesterday angrily rejected suggestions that the States was meeting in secret to discuss changing the island’s relationship with the UK. He requested an interview with BBC Radio Guernsey to insist that today’s meeting at La Trelade Hotel was just an educational seminar.
‘Any suggestion, or hint of a suggestion, that this is a States of Deliberation meeting or something like that couldn’t be further from the truth,’ he said.
He denied ‘unequivocally and categorically’ that it was a States meeting being held in secret.
As members would become better informed on the constitutional issue, Mr Rowland said he expected the media to applaud the event.
The Bailiff described as ‘preposterous’ the idea that the media should be allowed in.
‘We are fully entitled to have a briefing session without the media there. I cannot understand why the media, who are not elected and not answerable truly to anybody, think they have the right to turn up to these meetings.
‘It is quite outrageous to suggest that the media have a right to go into private meetings.’
Some States members tended to support the view of the presiding officer yesterday and rubbished a Daily Telegraph story that the States was discussing independence from the UK under a ‘cloak of secrecy’.
Chief Minister Mike Torode also reacted sharply to that story.
‘I get very angry when people talk about it being a secret meeting and this article says it has created anger among the population of Guernsey, which is absolute rubbish, and you can’t word it strongly enough for me,’ he said.
‘It’s nonsense to suggest it’s a secret meeting. It’s a meeting between members of the States and I take great exception to people saying it’s a secret.’
Article posted on 20th April, 2007 - 12.00am
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