OF ALL the matters facing Guernsey’s Policy Council, fretting about the order in which individuals placed wreaths of remembrance on the island’s chief war memorial would hardly be uppermost in the mind of most people.

Indeed, there is something almost disrespectful in a ‘who goes first?’ debate at a time that demands attention be focused on the sacrifice made by so many – and when sacrifices continue to be made to this day.

Yet it is an open secret that there are conflicting views in Frossard House over the role of Bailiff in a modern, democratic society, especially at a time when Guernsey has an elected chief minister who is the outward-facing representative of the island. How does that square with the office of Bailiff, whose day job is head of the judicial system, yet is also well understood as Guernsey’s first citizen?

Some indication of the perceived difficulties are contained in the Wales Audit Office report on the island’s absence of good governance: the role of the office of Bailiff was repeatedly raised by those spoken to by the review team. However, the WAO decided not to become drawn into a clearly difficult area, choosing instead to indicate that the role of the office of Bailiff as presiding officer in the States of Guernsey has nothing to do with being a Crown appointee but happens because the States, in the 1948 Reform Law, wished it to be so.

In other words, the States can change that whenever it wishes.

Whether the States can, however, is very different from whether it should. If Guernsey was starting from scratch, would it have the system it now has? But not only has it worked, the Bailiff has been the identifiable face of Guernsey since at least the 1200s and islanders are delighted that the current postholder, Sir Geoffrey Rowland, was yesterday knighted by the Queen in a ceremony that we can all regard as an honour for the whole community.

For the current system to be changed, there needs to be a clear need to do so – and substantial benefits as a result.

A row over precedence on Armistice Day is not what islanders will see as a compelling case.