Reform
Jersey is holding a public meeting this Thursday evening in the Town Hall at
7.30 p.m. to discuss the implications for democracy in the island of the Chief
Minister’s Proposition P33 creating a system of “ministerial responsibility”.
For Reform
Jersey, P33 is simply a further concentration of power in the hands of a narrow
and unrepresentative elite, in an Assembly that is already dangerously out of
touch and unrepresentative.
It follows
on from the earlier attempt to push the gerrymander of Option B through the
States, having high-jacked the Electoral Commission and then sought to
legitimate their chosen scheme with a Referendum that saw an abysmal 26%
turnout. With long overdue electoral reform sabotaged, the forthcoming first
general election once again leaves the electorate without policy choice or
ability to structure the Assembly. High voter abstention will continue.
There are a
number of proposed amendments to P33, none more audacious than that of the
Treasury Minister, Senator Philip Ozouf, calling for salary increases for
Ministers, ending existing egalitarian principles of remuneration and replacing
it with a system of patronage, to the detriment of back benchers.
Reform
Jersey will have members speaking and an invited guest with firsthand
experience of the measures currently in place to prevent a concentration of
power in the hands of a Chief Minister.
In this
video interview recorded by Voiceforchildren, Reform Jersey members Deputy Sam
Mezec and I, set out the reasons for calling the meeting.
