Senior deputies want a code of conduct for unelected members

Deputies have been subject to a code of conduct since 2006, but there has never been a code to regulate the behaviour of members of committees who are not elected deputies.

Earlier this year, Express reported on the objections of some senior deputies to what they saw as unreasonable and unprofessional conduct from a non-voting member of one committee after he was publicly critical of the members and policies of another committee.

Now the States’ senior committee, Policy & Resources, has written to the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee to say it wants a code of conduct for unelected members of committees as soon as possible and that it has the support of all except two of the presidents of the major committees. It has asked the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee to provide a timetable for the introduction of a code.

At the most-recent meeting of the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee, its President, Deputy Carl Meerveld, said that any future code to regulate the conduct of unelected members of committees should not be more demanding than the existing code of conduct for deputies.

He also said that no member of a committee should be precluded or discouraged from freely expressing their political opinions.

Pictured: Several senior deputies, including the Policy & Resources Committee and all except two of the presidents of other major committees, want the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee, pictured above, to draw up a code to regulate the conduct of members of committees who are not elected members of the States. 

Deputy John Gollop, a member of the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee and the island’s longest-serving deputy, said he was increasingly concerned about the position of non-voting members of States’ committees.

“I’m unhappy about them generally,” said Deputy Gollop.

“There are real issues with their selection. If you are doing it on professional and financial knowledge, you are restricting it to an elite in society.”

Deputy Gollop said that unelected non-voting members of committees were increasingly “in a strange place” and that he was “becoming more appreciative of the argument…never to have them because it’s not democratic”.

The States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee is developing a framework which will provide guidance on various aspects of the role of unelected non-voting member of a committee and the skills recommended for appointment to the role. It will also shortly write to the Policy & Resources Committee in reply to the request to introduce a code of conduct for such members as soon as possible.

The code of conduct for deputies introduced 15 years ago was intended “to assist [them] in the discharge of their obligations to the States and the public” and to set out “disciplinary proceedings to be instituted against members who breach the code or who abuse parliamentary privilege”.