THE Law Officers’ Department has hit back at criticism over a £1.6 million bill for external legal expenses, arguing that the spend fell during a “particularly demanding year”.
An article in Saturday’s JEP Advocate Darry Robinson cited information gained under the Freedom of Information Act that revealed that the department spent £1,612,507 on external legal fees from October 2023 to September 2024.
Advocate Robinson, at local firm Benest Syvret, said that the figure was “obscene”, especially given that Jersey Crown Advocates are paid upwards of £100,000 a year.
But in a letter to the JEP, Jersey’s Attorney General Mark Temple said that the spend included investigations relating to the gas explosion at Haut du Mont and the sinking of the L’Ecume II fishing vessel, as well as cases involving safeguarding issues and financial crime.
He also said that much of the cost of external legal advice is offset by the money recovered from defendants in legal cases, especially in cases involving financial crime.
“The LOD has recovered many millions which have been paid into the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund or the Civil Asset Recovery Fund where they can be used for the projects for the benefit of the Island.
“For example, the first major confiscation under the 2018 Forfeiture of Assets (Civil Proceedings) Law resulted in US$10 million paid into the COCF in 2019, and in 2020 the Doraville case resulted in US$5 million being retained for the Island.”
The Law Officers’ Department are not a “public authority” for the purpose of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 and are therefore not obliged to respond to any Freedom-of-Information requests. Whereas in the UK, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives the public the right to access official information held by the Crown Prosecution Service.
But Mr Temple argued that while the LOD is not subject to FOI, it is inspected annually by an external company, Lexcel.
Although the full report of those findings are currently not made public, the LOD told the JEP that it would be willing to publish the report.
