Privileges and Procedures Committee 6th September 2016

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PRIVILEGES AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE (44th Meeting)

6th September 2016

PART A (Non-exempt)

All members were present.

Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement , Chairman

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf

Connétable D.W. Mezbourian of St. Lawrence (in attendance for items A1, A2, B1 and B3 only)

Connétable C.H. Taylor of St. John

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier

Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier

Deputy S.M. Brée of St. Clement

In attendance -

Dr. M. Egan, Greffier of the States

L.M. Hart , Deputy Greffier of the States

W. Millow , Acting Assistant Greffier of the States

M. Waddington, Assistant Law Draftsman (in attendance for item B1 only) K.L. Slack, Clerk to the Privileges and Procedures Committee

Note:  The Minutes of this meeting comprise Part A and Part B.

Minutes.  A1.  The Minutes of the meetings held on 27th June 2016 (Part A only), 30th June

2016 (Part A only) and 16th August 2016 (Part A and Part B), having previously been circulated, were taken as read and were confirmed.

Senatorial  A2.  The Committee, with reference to its Minute No. A4 of the 16th August 2016, by-election and  received an oral update from the Deputy Greffier in respect of the arrangements for vote.je  the Senatorial by-election, which was due to be held on 7th September 2016. website.

424/99(1)  The Deputy Greffier informed the Committee that 62,566 people had been on the

electoral register for the general election in 2014, when the overall turnout had been 39.85%. A further 2,000 people had registered to vote in this by-election and the Greffe had done its utmost to encourage people both to register and to turn out and vote.

It was noted that neither Channel Television, nor BBC Jersey would be covering the results  of  the  by-election  live,  but  the   Deputy  Greffier  and  the  Clerk  to  the Committee would be on duty during the evening and would update the vote.je website as the votes were declared. The official figures would be provided by the Jurats who would be based at the Parish Hall s.

Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier complimented the team responsible for the vote.je website, which he felt was extremely good, and the Connétable of St. John indicated that the company, which had provided the sound system for the majority of the hustings, had done an excellent job. It was noted that the Parish of St. Peter had declined to use that company for its hustings and people had criticised the resultant sound quality on the video.

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The Deputy Greffier notified the Committee that a Freedom of Information request had been submitted, requesting the total cost of the by-election. This would not be known until after the event, but she indicated that there would be a cost of approximately £1,500 associated with each of the hustings and it had been necessary to print 47,000 manifesto brochures for distribution to each household. The printing costs would be less significant than for the 2012 election, as the brochures were smaller, so it was possible to print them on-Island.

The Committee noted that the identity of the new Senator would not be formally announced until 4p.m. on 8th September 2016.

On a related matter, the point was made that the ballot papers looked unwieldy because of the legal requirement for candidates' full names to be included thereon, leading to the majority of candidates including in parentheses the name by which they were commonly known. The Committee recalled that the draft Public Elections (Amendment No.7) (Jersey) Law 201-, which was currently with the Judicial Greffier for his input, would make miscellaneous amendments to the Public Elections (Jersey) Law 2002, and would, inter alia, address this issue. The Greffier undertook to contact the Judicial Greffier to request his input at the earliest opportunity in order that the Committee could proceed to have the draft Law lodged au Greffe'.