Bailiff warns States Members are not reading the fine print

Wednesday 27 May 2015

Jersey’s politicians are not doing a good enough job of reading and scrutinising new laws and policies, the new Bailiff was warned, in a rare criticism of the States Chamber.

In carefully-worded terms, William Bailhache has pointed out that Jersey’s 49 politicians aren’t checking the fine print of the laws that go before them.

His comments were made in the Annual Report of the States Chamber, in which he also called for more work to be done to improve turnout at elections. Last October’s Senatorial election saw a turnout of 39.8%, a long way short of the 66.1% recorded in the UK earlier this month.

Mr Bailhache said in his comments that he would be prepared to help work to raise awareness and voter turnout.

But the most controversial remarks were about the way that the States go about the job of scrutinising and reviewing draft laws and policies – a point that he said had been a consistent feature of his 15 years involvement with the States as Attorney General, Deputy Bailiff and now as Bailiff.

He said: “One sometimes gains the impression that the detailed legislative provisions are not receiving the scrutiny which in an ideal world might be desirable.

“I would not say for one moment that this has necessarily caused a problem to date, but it should not be forgotten that the passage of good legislation is one of the primary functions of a legislature, and it may be that some thought could usefully be given to a review of how extensive the current scrutiny of such provisions is and whether there are any improvements which might be made.”