Democracy in the balance
Tuesday 22nd February 2011, 3:00PM GMT.
THANKS to the welcome intervention of Deputy Carolyn Labey, States Members have another chance to reverse the absurd and fundamentally anti-democratic decision to remove four Senators from our elected Assembly.
Adding to pressure already being applied by former senior statesmen and other prominent figures, the Deputy has lodged a proposition, to be debated next week, which, if accepted, would undo the harm done by previous rash and imprudent decisions taken by a majority of our political representatives.
As matters stand, with four Senatorial seats scheduled for the axe, the Island faces a serious dilution of representation at the most democratic level – through the all-Island mandate. It is vitally important that this is remedied – and remedied as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Indeed, if our democracy were to be strengthened, it can be argued that more potential representatives should face the all-Island test. Instead, we are facing a situation in which power is shifting away from Members who can claim to have won the confidence of large numbers of electors towards those elected on ridiculously small numbers of votes or even no votes at all.
To make matters worse, there is also a very unpleasant whiff of self-interest in the air.
A petition is already circulating calling for the four Senatorial posts to be reinstated and moves were also afoot to request the UK Privy Council to intervene. These measures can both be considered legitimate attempts to bring certain Members to their senses, but they will be rendered surplus to requirements if Deputy Labey’s proposition receives the favourable reception it so richly deserves.
Moreover, the Deputy’s route to reversal would make the Privy Council initiative unnecessary – with the benefit that a powerful UK entity would be offered no pretext for taking a closer interest in our internal affairs than is strictly needed.
Meanwhile, a reversal of the Senators decision would open the door to a course of action urged by one of Deputy Labey’s supporters on this issue, Deputy Daniel Wimberley. He quite rightly argues for the creation of an electoral commission to look dispassionately and logically at the way in which government is structured.
It is also fair to say that if Deputy Labey is successful, members of the Privileges and Procedures Committee, which has scarcely covered itself in glory over this whole issue, should ask themselves if they have anything of further value to contribute to the process of reform.
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What a load of rubbish. Why does removing all the Senators as proposed by most the current “lobbyists” and even Clothier equate to good democracy but removing only 2 in October make our whole system undemocratic? Whilst Senators have an Island wide mandate the bulk of the votes coming from a few centres such as St Helier renders the “Democratic” impact of the voter from any of the country parishes insignificant.
For the past 10 years since Clothier every attempt at reform has been either voted out or sabotaged before it was even properly debated.
The use of such emotive language in the article is both inaccurate and completely inappropriate. The Jersey public have DEMANDED a general election and an end to the Senatorial circus of would be deputies abusing the system to get cheap pre election publicity. Well we have finally got these TWO very important changes and hopefully in the next sitting we will get even more reforms. “Democracy in the Balance”? This is DEMOCRACY
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Hey JEP opinion! Shouldn’t you be keeping such political opinion to yourself. I for one think the seats should be left empty, but I’m just one lone voice and not the one and only Jersey newspaper. You have showed of late to be impartial and that’s the way to be no matter what. Please try harder
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#2 Peter Price “Hey JEP opinion! Shouldn’t you be keeping such political opinion to yourself.”
Peter, it’s an opinion piece. Its purpose is to express an opinion. If you look at any newspaper over the past 200 years, you’ll find this isn’t the first time an editorial has appeared. Typically, they seek to stimulate debate, not censorship.
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Well said Jerry .. Everybody seems to be missing the issue here. Our democratic rights have been significantly infringed by the recent States decision. The process used lacked integrity and would not be tolerated in any modern democracy. The States need to rectify this as soon as possible and should therefore support the Deputy of Grouville’s proposition. The consequences of doing nothing are not worth thinking about.
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Having previously ridiculed the “Establishment – control at all costs” conspiracy theories promulgated by many I have to admit this campaign against tweaking the makeup of the States in order to allow our first general election to take place gives me grave cause for concern. My understanding is that we are losing two Senatorial seats in October but the banner headlines “Democracy in the Balance” suggests some sinister plot by the PPC committee to usurp complete control and plunge Jersey into a dictatorship. If this were an isolated bit of spin then perhaps fair comment [Jerry #3] but it seems that the JEP have gone silly on this rather trivial issue. The headline “Jersey to finally get a General Election” would be more appropriate although less emotional.
What however is disturbing is that chatting in the pub last night among the traditional conspiracy theory brigade was the suggestion that the real issue was to get rid of the PPC Committee before they could bring the new freedom of information law although another was that the Establishment wanted to keep a vacancy open for Mr Gaddafi.
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#5 Sanity .. what a lot of nonsense. It’s very simple, we are about to be disenfranchised by FOUR votes, without any consultation or endorsement. This decison was approved by 28 votes to 21. 22 of the 28 votes cast to remove the 4 Senators were cast by Deputies. That is wrong, it’s undemocratic and unacceptable in a modern democracy and if you dont like it try living in Colnel Gadaffi’s Libya for a month or two!
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Tintin – what you are actually proposing will scrap our long promised General Election and will trash any remaining credibility Jersey has with the UK bozos who have been asked to fast track this legislation.
You claim it will disenfranchise us? – By two votes. If everybody still gets to vote for the same number then we are still a democracy and according to statistics most people don’t use these two votes anyway simply because most of us just don’t know enough about the second tier Candidates scraping in for 5th and 6th place on a minority mandate. It is the current system that is flawed and therefore undemocratic. Indeed I doubt that the UK will even understand your concerns as they have only one vote each for a single MP to represent their district.
The probable outcome of your petition on being presented to the UK government so close to our ex-Senator Syvret also claiming that Jersey was a dictatorship could be direct UK intervention as it must appear to them that we are totally incapable of any degree of self-rule and this instability will be quickly picked up by the finance industry which pays the wages of most of us to some degree..
Even Clothier recommended that ALL the Senators should be removed?
There is clearly something wrong with our current make up of government. Hopefully if this limited reform goes ahead then in the next session the scene will be set for a further cull of the Deputies or maybe a compromise by introducing a single States member on an enlarged district basis as was suggested but rejected a few years ago.
Over 70% islander’s want a General election – this Tintin IS Democracy].
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7 Sanity
What will damage Jersey’s credibility, is the fact that its Parliament have voted on a matter which was outside the States’ legitimate democratic remit.
Since you believe, however, that the decision to reduce the number of Senators, taken by a majority of low-vote Deputies, without the mandate of either a referendum or an independent Electoral Commission, was democratically justifiable, you would also presumably support a majority vote in the States which appointed one of their number as President-for-life, for example.*
Your opposition to the editorial (“I don’t agree with the opinion, so it shouldn’t be allowed”) seems as unprincipled as your support for the decision to reduce the number of Senators (“I like it, so who cares if it was ethical?”)
* Naturally, the new President-for-life would have to be someone you favoured.
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Jerry – This was a decision made by those democratically elected representatives voted in by the people of Jersey. Under our constitution our parliament is currently made up of three types of politician all of whom have an equal vote in the assembly. It is also the ONLY body who has the authority to make Laws and therefore it is the ONLY body able to enact any changes to our constitution. I agree that there should be a referendum on such issues but in reality this is a very small change but the benefits of having a single general election and an end to the Senatorial circus can only strengthen our Democracy.
My reference to the damage this petition addressed to a foreign government albeit the UK which in effect alludes to Jersey being a quasi dictatorship is reminiscent of former Senator Syvret when he claimed political asylum. I was disgusted with the antics of ex-Senator Syvret as much as I am disgusted with Ex Deputy Lyndon Farnham who it seems is going down the same road. If elected as Senator – which incidentally I believe is the real reason for this petition – will he also go running to the UK if things don’t go his way?
Democracy is about winning a majority of support whereas our current system allows second tier politicians to gain equal power with just a minority vote. This change does not prevent anybody standing and does not reduce the ability of the voter to cast their vote. We remain a Democracy.
And just for the record I don’t believe this is necessarily the right change but I respect the democratic decision of our Government. Hopefully the calibre of politician will improve after our first GENERAL ELECTION, that is assuming this is not sabotaged, and pave the way to well thought through reform backed by a referendum being passed by the new house..
Our present politicians have failed to maintain the support and confidence of the public and this must change if Jersey is to continue as a successful and independent jurisdiction. Any politician or would be politician who can’t understand this is another nail in Jersey’s coffin.
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Tintin / Jerry I have not intentionally picked on this subject and would not have given it much thought had it not been the sudden irreconcilable hostility by a small minority of people against it.
According to the BBC website this reform was proposed in 2007 by the former Privileges and Procedures Committee. These proposals were made after an intense public consultation and have been under consideration by all and sundry ever since without ANY adverse comment. Suddenly there are claims that after October 2011 Jersey will become a Dictatorship?
Please forgive any reference to conspiracy theory but can former Deputy Farnham or any of the current politicians attempting to sabotage these reforms please explain why they did not object in 2007 or at any time since?. Could it be because we are now 2011 and we have an election looming? Is it that suddenly all the above have woken from a three year slumber, remembered the £45k salary cheque and said what are my chances of getting another 3 years?
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9 Sanity
“I agree that there should be a referendum on such issues but in reality this is a very small change”
The ‘but’ here is a very big ‘but’. It encapsulates your whole thesis, that a General Election is in itself such a vital thing, that it warrants abandoning every principle of democratic accountability. You say, in effect, that your desire to improve democracy in Jersey is so strong, that you are willing to sacrifice democracy in order to achieve it.
Look – we agree that constitutional changes properly require the endorsement which can only be provided by a referendum or an independent electoral commission.
We agree that, ultimately, only the States can make Law in the Island.
We even agree that this present change is not necessarily the right one – although that’s nowhere near as important as the democratic principles at stake here. (For the record, though, even though I have no strong attachment to any particular model of States’ composition, I wouldn’t expect Island governance to be improved if, in your words, the ‘Senatorial circus’ ended and all States Members were elected on a tiny local mandate: Every Member would protect his/her little patch, and no-one would defend the interests of the Island as a whole.)
However, removal of a significant part of the all-Island vote, in the main by a bunch of people who came to office with a very small number of votes themselves, in defiance of the referendum/electoral commission principle on which we agree, is not ‘a small change’. Even if it was – the destruction of democracy is typically achieved by means of a succession of apparently minor changes, rather than by a single monumentous decision.
None of us have any way of knowing Mr Farnham’s motivation, but the fact is that he has followed a constitutionally-correct route. His actions cannot reasonably be compared with Syvret’s years of media-campaigning to blacken the name of Jersey worldwide and of hundreds of named individuals among the Island’s population. Certainly, nothing in Mr Farnham’s petition says that Jersey is ‘a quasi dictatorship’ (your words) merely that he believes a democratically-unsound decision has been taken.
Equally, we have no inside knowledge of Deputy Labey’s motives – though I think we both recognise that in the Spring of each election year, politicians do have a tendency to slowly come to life… Nevertheless, the Deputy has a perfect right to bring her proposition to the States, giving them a chance to retract an undemocratic decision while avoiding unwanted attention from the UK. It would be a mistake, with both Lyndon Farnham and the Deputy, to rubbish the message simply because we don’t much like the messenger.
If the decision to reduce the number of Senators is a wise one, it can still be taken after a referendum and/or electoral commission, which can only give it the democratic credibility which it currently lacks.
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Sanity – this is a healthy debate but its getting tied up with mis information. Firstly, this will NOT effect our election day in October 2011 with the exception of 6 Senators and not 4 would be elected. Secondly, this then leaves 4 years for a new body to make recommendations to the States for good, solid, sensible reform .. those recommendations must then be comsulted upon with the people of Jersey and finally endorsed by referendum prior to being passed into law. We can then have our new system comfortably in place for the next election in 2015. The reason this is such a big issue noww is because the States have left it so late to debate and the majority of sensible people did not think it would come even close to being adopted.
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Tintin #12
) … The next election will be in 2014, not 2015!!
Actually, Tintin, you seem to be rather misinformed yourself! Firstly although there will still be elections all on one day this year, there will not be a general election as not all seats will be up for grabs. Under the reform proposals adopted last October and confirmed last month, there WILL be a general election in 2014. Deputy Carolyn Labey’s proposition scuppers that totally.
Also lost is the four year term – the same for all Members – but much more importantly IMHO the “roadmap”, “timetable”, whatever you want to call it, for further reform also fails. Six Senators would be elected for six years and so nothing really effective could be achieved before 2017. So no amount of costly work by an electoral commission would amount to anything before then. Talk about a waste of effort, time and taxpayers’ money that would be!!!
At last our states have actually listened to what the people want – a true General Election, when there will be no “hangers-on” from the last election and the Chief Minister candidates will all have been tested at the ballot box on CURRENT issues and policy, not three years previously. To try to overturn that decision, adopted by a huge majority of the current States Members in the third reading, must surely be the most frightening abuse of democracy of all – especially when it appears that the person stirring things up seems to have a vested self- interest (ie has admitted he is considering standing for Senator).
BTW, poor Tintin – you seem to be having trouble keeping up
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It’s time that all of the electorate had a fair unsullied vote on an island wide mandate, which was removed by those, whom have not any such mandate and are conflicted by their centrally funded salaried positions, paid for by that electorate, whom they do not repesent.The composition of the States Assembly is now proven untenable in democratic process.Deputies are little more than local councillors and that they can vote as if they were elected under an island wide mandate, is an abberation of social justice.Deputy Carolyn Labey deserves support for her proposition.
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To say this debate is becoming tied up in miss-information appears to be an understatement.
Firstly Jersey is probably the only democracy in the world where MPs are voted for on a national rather than on a constituency basis. Therefore the removal of two Senators is immaterial to our international Democratic status.
The public have demanded a General Election which will become a complete farce if we have MPs attainting office on a very small minority vote. Our current system is bad enough as the statistic prove with most people using an average of 4 of their 6 votes. This would become a complete farce with 12 candidates unless Jersey adopts party politics. In reality we would have the majority of people voting for the same 4 whilst a small minority, probably on a party mandate, would only need a few hundred votes to take 8 of the 12 seats and forming a government. This is further multiplied if the current reform is rejected and we go for a complete Island only mandate. This is not democracy.
It has been stated that this proposition was passed by unelected Deputies, yet in the final reading none of the Senators voted against.
Why did nobody object in 2007 when the proposal to reduce the Senators was first passed by the House?
In my opinion this is no more than a very high power lobbying campaign on behalf of a small number of Senatorial hopefuls who have suddenly woken up to the fact that they have no chance at the next election and a number of deputies who don’t want to be challenged by these same people.
Democracy in the balance – only if we allow this small but very influential group of political dinosaurs overturn our democratic process. Our current system does not work – we need change and we need to move on.
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Sanity – it sounds like you are now talking about voting reform .. what is it you favour over the current system then – a single transferrable vote, re open nominations? The key issue here is that it is morally wrong for States members to decide themselves how many of them should sit in the States. Surely you will at least agree that recommendations for any further reform must be made by independent body .. and the States must consult with the electorate and seek their endorsement, by referendum, before changing the law?
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