Europe’s last feudal state yesterday decided to remove the 40 ‘tenants’ – landowners who had a hereditary right to sit in Sark’s parliament, the Chief Pleas – and move to a fully elected assembly.
Previously, only 12 elected deputies sat alongside the tenants.
Now the Chief Pleas will be made up of 28 members, called Conseillers, who will all be chosen by the 500 or so electors.
The island first agreed in March to change its ancient system of government.
The feudal system can trace its roots to 1565, when Queen Elizabeth I signed a charter authorising the Seigneur of St Ouen in Jersey, Helier de Carteret, to colonise the island with 40 families, most of whom came from Jersey.
The decision to change the constitution was prompted by a legal challenge brought by the owners of the Daily Telegraph, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, who own the nearby island of Brecqhou.
The brothers argued that Sark’s feudal constitution was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
