Jersey’s illegal Senators and Deputies

[ FYI: This is Jersey the Channel Island, not Jersey the US State ]

Richard Murphy:

The scandal became apparent broke on 4th January 2019 when two Jersey Deputies (Scott Wickenden and Hugh Raymond) and one unsuccessful candidate, Bernie Manning, appeared in the Magistrates Court charged by HM Attorney General for Jersey under Article 6(6) of the Law for not returning the required form. Wickenden said he filed his on 28th July 2018 because he said he had shingles. Raymond did not so until December 2018 whilst Manning saaid he “put it in the post”.

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The story was broken in a video blog on Friday 11th January 2018. The Jersey media did nothing to report the revelations, but with over 600 hits on the video, it has been watched by many.

Not until HM Attorney General for Jersey Robert MacRae issued a Statement in the evening of Wednesday 16th January did the media report the matter and only then took verbatim without question his version of the facts.

What happened then was that the Jersey Attorney General (AG) decided to stop the prosecution of the three candidates. They appeared in the Magistrates Court on the morning of Friday 18th January but the AG stated that he would not prosecute other errant States Members or candidates on grounds of public policy and because he did not wish them to have criminal records. These three were not awarded their costs.

I cannot ignore this. What it shows is that the rule of law does not apply in Jersey. The law has been randomly disapplied to politcians even though the majority of them should now be excluded from office. In effect, last year’s Jersey general election result was basically null and void. But rather than face that inconvenience the powers that be have swept the matter under the carpet.

What else would one expect from a tax haven but such ‘flexibility’ for an elite who serve the interest of finance? And what else can one conclude but that the “Jersey Way” is in action?