By Susana Rowles
IN my last article about the leniency of a sentence given to a serious case of domestic abuse, I raised the issue of the message it sends to both perpetrators and victims of domestic abuse.
Since that article, I have been inundated with messages from people criticising that specific sentence and questioning the efficacy of our justice system as a whole. I am not sure if this crisis of confidence in the judiciary is occurring because this specific case has hit a nerve or because people see it as the culmination of a series of cases in which perpetrators have seemed to get off with just a “slap on the wrist.”
Confirmation bias will be playing a part here. People tend to see what they want to see. In this case, they are more likely to pay notice to lenient sentencing than to hundreds of strict ones but, nonetheless, I think serious damage has been done.
Law and order go hand in hand and are fundamental to the smooth running of society.
Many people will say that Jersey has it better than the rest of the world in many safety measures, but it is also true that we have seen a fair share of heinous crimes, slow justice and outdated practices.
Confidence in the judiciary is paramount for the running of civilised society.
Restoring confidence in the system is fundamental, and immediate steps must be taken in that direction. We cannot gloss over the position we are in, and the concerns raised by the public need to be addressed.
I was aware that the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs was commissioning independent reviews of the Law Officers’ Department and the Courts. These essential reviews had been instigated by the recommendations of the Violence Against Women and Girls Taskforce Report, but, in a further blow to our confidence in the system, I was aghast to find out how these reviews were being commissioned.
In the shaded box, you will find a transcript of the relevant section of the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel quarterly hearing, which took place on 22 August with the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs.
I have left the exchange in full because I want you to hear, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, exactly how this review is being commissioned to see whether you reach the same conclusions that I have reached.
I suggest you read it before continuing to read this piece.
In short, the Law Officers’ Department, which is first in line for a review, has essentially been allowed to nominate its own reviewer without a tender process or a pool of candidates for the minister to choose from.
Firstly, let me be very clear: I do not want to cast aspersions of any sort about the individual who has been chosen. They may very well be at the top of their game, and I think we can presume a level of professional ethics about people working in this sector.
However, based on the way this appointment is being conducted, the word presume is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. When it comes to independent reviews of any part of the judiciary, we should never have to presume anything. It is not helpful to leave questions looming over a process as important as this.
Have we learnt nothing from our previous experiences?
The whole point of an independent review is to ensure impartiality. This impartiality is what enables us to establish, or, in this case, re-establish confidence in the system. Independence and credibility must work hand in glove to ensure that any resulting outcomes or recommendations (some of which will undoubtedly be a hard pill to swallow) are accepted in full and not undermined by the services that need to accept them.
Therefore, please can the minister explain the logic of choosing a single individual from a pool of one to conduct this review? I also do not understand how the service under review is able to nominate its own reviewer.
Irrespective of the qualities of the person involved, it leaves room to question whether the service has nominated someone who might be sympathetic to the service.
Now, I am aware that the pool of people able and willing to undertake this type of work is limited, perhaps so limited that only a handful of people have the credibility and capacity to undertake such work.
But even this does not explain the lack of a process in this appointment. If this piece of work is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
I would have expected a request for expressions of interest, even if the Law Officers’ Department identified a few people and invited them to apply. I was expecting at least a process of elimination and some interviews. Surely, due diligence for such an appointment must go beyond having one meeting with the minister?
Even the minister, by her own admission, seems to understand what is at stake: “It also has to be independent because I do believe that if you do not go to somebody outside Jersey, then there will be the thought that it is being done in-house and that we are not actually taking it seriously, which I think it is important that we do and that it is seen that we are having a proper review done and that it is being done by somebody independent.”
I am told that it is too late to address this issue and that the department is now focused on the next stage – the review of the Family Court Service. But I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s good enough to say that we will get it right next time.
Any doubt that remains over this appointment will be used to undermine its outcomes.
This was the minister’s chance to help Islanders regain confidence in the judicial system, and she blew it.
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Susana Rowles is an entrepreneur working in ed-tech. She was born in Portugal, spent most of her adult live in the UK and moved to Jersey in 2018. Susana is heavily involved in the local community and sits on the board of several Jersey charities. She has a keen interest in local politics and the impact it has on our community.
