NEWS that members and the chief officer of the Health and Social Services Department are seeking to pursue a former colleague under the terms of the States members’ code of conduct is a disappointing development in what might be called the wheelchair report affair.

For most islanders, what Deputy Mike Hadley is accused of is little more than the rough and tumble of politics and, from the board’s perspective, a time-wasting distraction when it has far more pressing matters to deal with.

His comments reflect what this newspaper has been saying – that the department’s justification for savagely editing a critical report on its wheelchair service was not credible.

The fact that the Health minister later agreed with us and apologised for what he called the misjudged handling of the abridged report makes the code of conduct complaint more puzzling.

It amounts to telling Deputy Hadley, ‘you were right in your criticisms but we didn’t like the way you made them’, which is not the most mature way to behave.

Unfortunately, however, the complaint against the deputy also raises the possibility of a breach against section eight – bringing the States into disrepute – and that is far more sinister.

What the department wants the conduct panel to adjudicate is that had Deputy Hadley’s stronger comments hit the headlines, instead of just deputies’ email in-trays, public confidence in Health could have been dented and thus lowered the esteem in which the States is held.

In other words, if accepted by the panel, no States member could make a damaging critical comment in public without running the risk of reprimand, suspension or expulsion – the perfect gag.

That is rather a contradiction to the department’s evidence to the Scrutiny Committee’s 2005 look at how government dealt with complaints and whistle-blowers, when it insisted that ‘all complaints will be dealt with seriously and sympathetically to ensure that the standard of service provided by the [department] is monitored and maintained to a high level’.

Sadly, it appears that closing down dissenting voices is more important to Health than providing a wheelchair service that stands up to objective scrutiny.