Issue 3 Reform Jersey party newsletter September 2017 Bailiff interferes in Separation of Powers debate By Deputy Sam Mézec _ Recommendation 7 of the report reaching a conclusion “without taking
[email protected] suggested that issues surrounding the appropriate evidence” which “removes lack of a Separation of Powers in Jersey its credibility in respect of its conclu- Jersey’s unelected Bailiff, William must be addressed if Islanders are to sion”, despite two reports into Jersey’s Bailhache, has made an unprecedented have confidence that their institutions constitution (the Clothier and Carswell political intervention in the debate on are fit for purpose to safeguard the in- reports) already examining the issue of the Separation of Powers. terests of vulnerable people in the care the dual role of the Bailiff in detail and The States Assembly Privileges and of the state. concluding that it breached the demo- Procedures Committee has published a In his letter, the Bailiff (who has a cratic principle of the Separation of Pow- letter sent by the Bailiff to the Chief Min- history of using the phrase “the Jersey ers . ister and Council of Ministers, in which Way”, a phrase which was criticised in The four-page letter mounted a bi- the Bailiff seeks assurances from the the inquiry report) accuses the recom- zarre defence of the dual role of the Chief Minister that he will not make his mendations on the Separation of Powers Bailiff, suggesting that the current sys- argument for ending the dual role of the made by the Independent Jersey Care tem in Jersey was more democratically Bailiff on the basis of Recommendation Inquiry of being “both illogical and un- acceptable than the system which the 7 of the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry necessary”.