The rules governing the purdah period before an election were changed after the St Saviour Member argued that the end of the last term was ‘not a good process’, with politicians rushing propositions through before the States broke for the election.
The Assembly sat late into the night on several occasions during the weeks leading up to the election, while some propositions had to be scrapped or moved as time was running out.
The States also sat until just an hour before the Senatorial nominations meeting – which under Deputy Maçon’s proposals would not happen again.
Members were criticised by Bailiff Sir William Bailhache during one sitting for leaving so much important business to the final weeks of the Assembly’s term.
Among the proposals debated in the final week were plans to fund university education, whether to review the proposed site of the new hospital and significant changes to the Island’s Sexual Offences Law.
During this week’s sitting, Deputy Maçon said: ‘It may feel counter-intuitive to some Members to begin this term discussing aspects towards the end of the term. Given how we proceeded towards the dying days of the last Assembly, I thought it was better to try to tackle this at the beginning rather than find ourselves in the same situation at the end of this term.
‘Ministers and committees [at the end of a term] are thinking we might not be here again so they are thinking about finishing all their pipeline bits of work.
‘The problem is just before the dying days of the Assembly, we get a huge mountain of work to get through.’
He also asked the Privileges and Procedures Committee to review the rules of purdah and to bring forward the changes to States Standing Orders, the rules which govern how the Assembly runs.
The proposals were overwhelmingly adopted via a series of votes.
