Stumbling towards reform

Understandably enough, the constitution and conduct of the Island’s government are matters of apparently limitless fascination to those most closely engaged in the day-to-day business of politics. Next week, before breaking up for their extended summer recess, the States will enjoy yet another opportunity to roam through the arcane minutiae of how many people should be elected to represent how many voters, on what basis and in what areas, and for how long.

The platform this time will be the debate on the outcome of April’s referendum, the first such significant consultation of that kind to be held in Jersey. On that occasion, the public voted for what was dubbed Option B, involving the removal from the States of Senators and their Islandwide mandate, the retention of the 12 parish Constables and the reduction of overall numbers from 51 to 42, all serving four-year terms.

Now that proposal is to be put to the House by the Privileges and Procedures Committee for ratification in time to give the 2014 elections a radically different look, with traditional parish boundaries superseded by the creation of large, mathematically neater voting districts.

It is already clear that there will be no rubber-stamp. Waiting in the wings should Privileges chairman Simon Crowcroft fail next week is a political lifeline in the form of Senator Ian Le Marquand’s common-sense proposal that, with no clear mandate achieved in the first place, he should rethink the whole reform issue, a prospect which combines dismay and hope in equal measure.

Before getting to that stage, the Constable of St Helier will have to negotiate his way past amendments lodged by two of his fellow town representatives, Deputies Andrew Green and Trevor Pitman, who want a bigger share of urban seats. The amendments would increase the size of the new-look States to 46 or 47 which, albeit for unashamedly partisan reasons, gets to the heart of the problem with Option B.

No compelling case was ever made for the reduction of the States to 42 Members and yet it was included in both reform options as if an article of faith. It remains difficult to see how, an adequate roster of ministers and assistant ministers could be found as things stand, let alone if the proposed creation of more ministries is successful, while still leaving enough Members free to run the Scrutiny system and hold the executive to account with enough firepower to outvote them.

The purpose of State reform is not to increase the devolved powers of the civil service, to serve anyone’s political agenda or to match any imported theory of how Jersey should run its affairs. It is to improve the standard and level of representation enjoyed by electors and give them a greater chance of getting what they think they voted for.

The referendum process was deeply flawed from the start. It would be naively optimistic to expect its aftermath to be anything else, but the current House should have that simple objective clearly in mind next week when they return once again to the