Public picks up £20,000 bill for failed election case

Thursday 05 March 2015

The taxpayer will pick up the £20,000 bill for a failed legal challenge against the election of a Deputy whose nomination paper was incorrectly filled out.

The Royal Court has ruled that the States should foot the legal costs after hearing that Deputy Scott Wickenden would have had to remortgage his home to pay his fees, and after deciding that lumping the two failed candidates with the bill would make people too scared to challenge elections in future for fear of running up thousands of pounds worth of debt.

Just weeks after first-time candidate Scott Wickenden was elected as a new Deputy for St Helier No 1, the election was challenged by failed candidates Nick Le Cornu and Gino Risoli because one of the ten signatories to the Deputy’s formal nomination paper didn’t live in his district, as required by law.

But Deputy Wickenden’s election was ruled in order, partly because he had asked the Parish of St Helier to check his form to make sure it was filled out correctly, and they had said it was fine.

The costs judgment, issued today, followed a hearing last month about who should pay for the case. The Commissioner, Julian Clyde-Smith, used the court’s power in civil cases to make the States pay the bill, after finding that the case was one of “general public importance” and that it would not have been fair to land Deputy Wickenden or the two plaintiffs with the bill.