Crown Officers’ States roles ‘ripe for review’
Monday 23rd February 2009, 2:29PM GMT.
MOMENTUM is gathering for Guernsey to follow Jersey in reviewing the roles of the Crown Officers in the States.
Deputy Bob Hill instigated the move in Jersey and believed there were similar issues in Guernsey.
The States Assembly and Constitution Committee will meet Jersey counterparts who are in charge of the review there.
‘SACC has not discussed the Jersey review into the roles of the Bailiff, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General,’ said chairman Ivan Rihoy. ‘The committee is, however, hoping to arrange a meeting later this year with the States of Jersey Privileges and Procedures Committee at which matters of mutual interest will be discussed and it is quite possible that the Jersey review will be raised in the course of the meeting.’
The Jersey review is seen by some as an ideal possibility for cooperation on the issue, which has also been ignited by the recent ruling that Sark’s Seneschal’s dual role as the island’s judge and speaker in Chief Pleas needs reform.
Advocate Gordon Dawes, pictured, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay’s lawyer in Guernsey, was particularly concerned about the role of the Law Officers in Guernsey.
‘I believe that a review of the role of the Law Officers in Guernsey is long overdue and not just in relation to their role in the States of Deliberation but much more broadly,’ he said.
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I fail to understand why, nine years after the landmark case of McGonnell v UK, that any of this is in doubt.
Like all really important cases, looking at it in retrospect, this is all obvious.
McGonnell, which was a Guernsey case, provoked radical reform in the UK constutition with the role of the Lord Chancellor being fundamentally reformed.
So why the procrastination here, where the issue was first highlighted.
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Our whole constitution from the top down desperately needs looking into. It is far too self preserving and luxurious for those that have got themselves to the top.
Very little accountability to anybody outside the channel islands has given some free licence to have things the way exactly how they like them. They also tend to pave the way for the next in line.
It would be nice to see an impartial jury system in place as well.
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I would agree that these roles do need to be considered and I would welcome a thorough review
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Mr Dawes is a very clever man. Even though I didn’t fully understand his piece today I did read it. The crux of which appears to be individuals in the MOJ limiting our ability to enact laws, the accountability of the Law Officers and how their change of procedures were not sanctioned by the Assembly.
Less talk about chicken eating dogs and more about our independence I would suggest.
This island is dying by 1000 cuts.
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As Jackie says the article is well written and unusually lacks the legal verbose that normally makes such articles unreadable.
The article is hard hitting and not at all complimentary to the Procuruer and his colleagues. One of the hard hits says
“From a constitutional perspective the most serious and most used of these devices (and it certainly was a device) was the unfettered
ordinance-making power.
The effect of including this kind of clause was (quite cynically, I believe) to avoid the need to take Guernsey legislation in that
area of law to the Ministry of Justice, the Privy Council and Her Majesty ever again”
The suggestion of abuse of power screams out from the article.
The article is an essential read for all.
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