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The purpose of this reform is to make Jersey democratic
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From Sam Mézec.
I WRITE after the coverage (JEP, 10 August) of the Chief Minister’s submission to the Electoral Commission. As someone with a keen interest in electoral reform in Jersey, I attended the hearing with an open mind, hoping to hear our Chief Minister put forward some interesting ideas.
I was completely disappointed, to the point where I am genuinely upset that I have to be so negative about it. His performance was utterly underwhelming, incoherent and inconsistent.
What he and other politicians (including members of the commission) are completely failing to recognise is the actual purpose of electoral reform. The whole reason that we are engaging in this exercise is because Jersey is not as democratic as it could be.
So why are politicians like Senators Gorst and Ozouf not actually talking about the principles and the values behind reform? I did a tally of how many times Senator Gorst actually used the word ‘democracy’ in his submission and it came to a grand total of precisely none.
At not one point did he think it was appropriate to lay down any sort of philosophical basis for trying to form a representative chamber and then outlining why his specific propositions were in line with those principles of democracy.
This is really worrying. If we don’t talk about the final aim of reform, how can we expect to reach an acceptable solution?
If this is about democracy, we need to start with the principles and work our way up, not just try and shift things about for no apparent reason, as the Chief Minister argued to do in his submission.
What is most concerning is how the Chief Minister can somehow claim that there is a democratic deficit with the Deputies, yet the Constables are fine, even though their democratic deficit is even worse than the Deputies.
The sad fact is that the Constables being in the States of Jersey is just not democratic. It is not a democracy when each person’s vote is not worth the same as everyone else’s.
Yet in Jersey we have this peculiar (and absurd) situation where the eight rural parishes have a combined population less than that of St Helier, yet still have eight representatives. This is not democratic. One person, one vote. Not one parish, one vote.
I completely reject the suggestion that the parish link is vital. The States of Jersey runs the Island, not the parishes, so we only need Island representation, not parishes. Eight out of 12 Constables aren’t even elected.
I believe that removing them from the States would actually benefit them.
Most people in Jersey have disdain for all politicians. If we stopped the Constables from being politicians, we could get rid of that disdain and make their job even more respected. Instead, we politicise them, which harms the office. If the parish system is to survive, it should do so because of its merits, not because it is put on life support by the States.
For Jersey to be truly democratic, we need States Members that each represent exactly the same number of people, and all Islanders, no matter where they live, should have the same number of votes. Keeping the Constables in the States makes this impossible.
It’s a choice between the Constables and democracy, and it’s obvious which we should go for.
I urge your readers to please write to the commission and ask for democracy. That is what this should be about and the commission are not hearing it enough.
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