The Privileges and Procedures Committee had proposed a radical overhaul of the States Assembly which would have removed the office of Senator, stopped Constables from voting in the Chamber and reduced the number of Members from 49 to 46. Instead, Islanders would have been asked to vote for 46 Deputies across nine broadly equal-sized districts. Constables would also have been able to stand for the position of Deputy.
Following a debate which lasted all day, Members rejected the substantive section of the proposition by 26 votes to 20.
Electoral reform has been a topic that has dogged States agendas for a number of years, although there have been very few meaningful changes.
Deputy Russell Labey, the committee’s chairman, spoke for around 40 minutes, and argued that there was no way the Island could improve its increasingly low level of civic engagement if it maintained the current system.
‘Do we honestly believe that we are going to get better civic engagement and better participation by staying as we are. We are not going to,’ he said. ‘How low do our participation levels have to fall before we can no longer call ourselves a properly functioning democracy. How low, how bad does it have to get?’
Deputy Labey also said that it would be immoral to allow the current system to continue.
‘Members might say, “Ah well, Jersey is special” but there is nothing special about keeping a large number of the population under-represented. There is nothing special, quaint or charming about that,’ he said.
‘It is simply unfair. There is nothing special about valuing some people more because of where they live than other people because of where they live.
‘We cannot claim as a government to have moral authority if we are allowing a system to perpetuate if it is blatantly unfair to some sectors of the population. It is an equality issue. It is a human-rights issue.’
Later, Constable Chris Taylor said that the move could lead to several parishes not being represented – prompting some calls of ‘not true’ in the Chamber.
Mr Taylor said: ‘Under these proposals there are up to five parishes that could have no representation in this Assembly. That is absolutely true.
‘The Venice Convention is very clear on boundaries. It says historic boundaries should be observed and contested. This proposition here says that the boundaries commission should be brought in and how can it change these boundaries? This goes directly against what the Venice Convention says.’
Mr Taylor later said that in 2014, 61% voted to keep Constables in the States. He added if Members voted in favour of the proposition, they would be turning their backs on those voters and in turn, would increase voter apathy.
Meanwhile, other States Members, including Constables Deirdre Mezbourian and Richard Vibert, raised issues with the methodology of the research used to shape the proposition and questioned the reliability of results. But Deputy Carina Alves said the business which undertook the survey was a ‘fully professional research company’ and added she was disgusted at the comments made by some members who ‘do not like the facts’.
