Move to introduce e-petitions

Sunday 05 March 2017

Islanders could soon have a bigger say in what the States debate.

The politician in charge of e-government, Deputy Scott Wickenden wants to introduce a mechanism similar to that operating in a number of other jurisdictions, whereby Islanders can submit e-petitions and force a debate.

Under the current system if an Islander wants the States to discuss something they have to get a politician to present their petition to the House and get then get the politician to bring a proposition. Deputy Wickenden wants to up date this.

He believe the current system has a number of drawbacks including not everyone knows a politician who will present their petition, and paperwork can be cumbersome.

The e-petition would supplement the current paper-based one.

Deputy Wickenden has studied a range of current options.

In the United Kingdom an e-petitioner has to get the support of five other people for an e-petition to become active; in Wales, the rules are changing to require there to be 50 signatures of an e-petition; whilst in Scotland, there are no restrictions on who can submit an e-petition. There’s then a threshold of signatures before the governments must take action. In the UK, a petition with 10,000 signatures must receive a response from the government, and one with 100,000 is considered for debate.

In his proposition Deputy Wickenden doesn’t say what the situation would be in Jersey. But, notes: “I would like to see petitions with sufficient support debated in the Assembly. However, there are a number of points of detail which need to be considered by PPC [the Privileges and Procedures Committee] before e-petitioning can be introduced. These include whether there should be any restriction on who can petition the Assembly, and how reference to departments for comments and for debate in the Assembly should work in practice.”

The States will now debate Deputy Wickenden’s propostion before taking any action.