CHIEF Pleas members have yet again questioned whether Bailiwick legislation is always appropriate for Sark – this time in relation to a law intended to ensure that charities and non-profit organisations are not used for money laundering or the financing of terrorism.
At the sitting earlier this month, a number of speakers referred to the danger for Sark of Guernsey States legislating for this island in Bailiwick-wide legislation.
What concerned them appeared to be the perennial question of whether Sark should opt into such legislation. In other words, Chief Pleas deciding first whether it wanted the island to be included and then, if the vote was affirmative, to what extent – or opt out, which seems to be the way the Guernsey authorities want it.
As I understand it, that means with the latter course that if the law is subsequently amended by Guernsey States, then Sark has four months in which to decide whether it agrees with the amendment and, if it does not, then it can annul it.
I’m not a lawyer but that seems to me to mean that with those subsequent amendments we are faced with a take-it-or-leave-it (in its entirety) situation in that they cannot be tailored to suit our specific requirements. Far better, as the majority of Chief Pleas members thought again earlier this month, for Sark to decide which bits it wants included and which it wants to discard.
As an aside, I would mention that with a charity such as the Professor Saint Fund, for which events such as the sheep racing are held, the legislation I refer to may well have made the cost of compliance either prohibitive or extremely time consuming for those who simply want to raise money.
Another of the more positive things to come out of the last sitting is that things are on the move at the island’s sewage treatment works, if the reader will excuse the expression.
Public Works president Paul Williams announced that many years of life had been added to the plant, which is at Les Laches on the east coast – and, to quote him, many hundreds of thousands of pounds saved – because an environmentally friendly liquid is being fed into the system.
Without going into too much detail – the subject probably precludes it – apparently the product makes the contents of the plant’s tanks aerobic (and I thought aerobic meant shapely young Australian women exercising in front of Sydney Opera House) and this makes the plant work properly.
As a result, the pumps and heaters hitherto used are being switched off and substantial savings are being made. As a near neighbour of the plant – there are only two homes closer – I welcome the committee’s initiative. I only hope that it doesn’t affect the size and quantity of the winkles in nearby Derrible Bay. They are the largest and most plentiful to be found here. I wonder why?
The island’s General Purposes and Finance Committee is working on legislation which will introduce work permits and make criminal record checks mandatory, presumably before a permit is issued.
Committee president Roger Olsen has said that a report with propositions could well be ready by the Michaelmas meeting in the autumn and until then the current voluntary system will continue to operate, with the co-operation of employers.
The matter was raised by tenant Rossford de Carteret, who wanted to know what progress had been made since the issue was discussed in Chief Pleas a year ago.
The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.
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