Jack Straw on Jersey

There is this wider responsibility for good governance. You have to be very careful about exercising that and it will be known that I have had representations in respect of certain criminal proceedings in respect of that and I have declined to intervene in those, as far as I am concerned, on good grounds. I think it is now generally accepted that there is a high level of regulation and practice of the financial institutions in the Crown Dependencies, but were that not the case then on the basis of good governance as well as other matters you could intervene. - Jack Straw, October 2008

Interesting question time in October in the UK regarding the Channel Islands, especially in the light of the recent comments about not interfering in the judicial process. Jack Straw makes it clear that he does not think he needs to intervene in the recent criminal proceedings "on good grounds", but he makes it very clear that if the grounds were there he could intervene "on the basis of good governance". He does not say how he would do this - but it is clear that he does have the power to do so.

Note to casual readers, I've left in the joke he made at the end of the session on the Channel Islands!

Tuesday 7 October 2008

RT HON JACK STRAW MP

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 68

Q14 Dr Whitehead: In your background note, which you very kindly provided this Committee with, you mentioned that the "UK receives criticism for intervening, say, too little and too much, sometimes at one and the same time". What are the criteria that exist in the Ministry of Justice for intervention and how might you judge the point at which intervention might be appropriate given the protocols that are in place?
Mr Straw: First of all, Dr Whitehead, the United Kingdom Government is responsible for international relations and defense, so we deal with those. For example, if there is a case before the European Court on Human Rights we are the respondent in that case.

The international responsibilities are not just for foreign relations, crucially in terms of day-to-day life within the Crown Dependencies they include the European Convention on Human Rights. It is best to illustrate this by a specific example. There was pretty well-publicised argument about whether the form of governance within Sark was consistent with basic democratic principles which are at large but also parts of which are contained within the European Convention on Human Rights. One of the powers that is available to anybody in my seat is in respect of whether to recommend a particular draft law from the Crown Dependencies for Royal Assent, and in most cases these are pretty routine or they are parallels to legislation which has been introduced in the United Kingdom and there is not an issue. In this particular case in respect of the original proposal for reform from Sark, I judged that it was insufficient to meet any kind of democratic test because it gave too much continuing power to the so-called tenants, who are the land holders of the 40 key parcels of land within Sark, and gave them disproportionate power within what should have been the democratic chamber of Sark.

There is this wider responsibility for good governance. You have to be very careful about exercising that and it will be known that I have had representations in respect of certain criminal proceedings in respect of that and I have declined to intervene in those, as far as I am concerned, on good grounds. I think it is now generally accepted that there is a high level of regulation and practice of the financial institutions in the Crown Dependencies, but were that not the case then on the basis of good governance as well as other matters you could intervene.

Q26 Robert Neill: I understand where you are coming from. I had the chance to visit the Channel Islands earlier in the year and spoke to some legislators there. Taking on board your point about the difficulties where there are specific complexities, for example the constitution arrangements, or where there is clearly something that falls within (I was going to call it) a long-stop role that the British Government has to pick up, can I take it, in respect of other more routine domestic Channel Islands legislation, which, nonetheless, has to be recommended by your department for approval, that the basic principle there is that assuming it does not offend against any of these major issues you would not seek to intervene in what has been passed by the Legislature?

Mr Straw: I have not got the numbers, but a surprisingly large number of these draft laws come through my hands and David Hanson's each month and my guess is that more than 99 times out of 100 they are recommended. Sometimes there are issues which arise, for example over drafting. There was an issue recently where I was concerned about loose drafting which was creating a breadth of criminal offences, albeit it technical, which I do not think would have had an easy passage here. I got undertakings about how it was to be dealt with.

Q35 Mr Heath: I think we could probably comfortably fit the population of several of the smaller Channel Islands into one of your Titan prisons.

Mr Straw: Actually I worked it out. We could have fitted it into the old building, easily, of the Ministry of Justice.

Links

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmjust/uc1076-i/uc107602.htm

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2008/11/10/dont-interfere-in-ci-affairs-mps-are-told/