IN OUR regular Inside Politics column yesterday we highlighted the Law Officers’ insistence that they regard with the utmost seriousness their duties to safeguard and uphold the rights and liberties of islanders and, that being the case, it is right to ask what went wrong in the case of Avant Garden.

This entirely decent local business, which has struggled in the past at the hands of officialdom, wanted to open on Sundays in the historic setting of Sausmarez Manor, one of the island’s leading tourist attractions.

St Martin’s douzaine, lacking the savvy to ask whether the sky would fall in if they simply said yes, scuttled off to Commerce and Employment even though it is the parish’s duty to administer the relevant legislation.

So Trading Standards said no and, as a result of the subsequent tribunal, we all now know that was the wrong decision and has to be overturned.

What’s more intriguing is how this happened in the first place. Trading Standards is about safeguarding consumer interests, not restricting people’s ability to shop, so why was it involved in the first place?

What qualifications has it to offer advice on the law anyway? Is this another case of existing legislation being subject to fresh advice by the Law Officers as in the infamous Cobo balcony gig episode?

Avant Garden opening on a Sunday would impact on no one, other than perhaps pleasurably, so why did someone juggle with the law to prevent the opening?

It is difficult not to see some malign agenda at work here. If Trading Standards really adhered to the mandate of Commerce and Employment to promote commerce and industry, it would have actively assisted the business to open.

It could have suggested to proprietor Nick Martel that he reapply for permission under category H – the common sense route taken by the tribunal – but it did not and islanders deserve to know the reason.

Avant Garden actively promotes Guernsey via its website, which recently won a UK ‘best of’ accolade, yet someone, somewhere actively went out of their way to try to stop it opening on Sundays.

Commerce and Employment might care to explain why – if it can.