Human Rights audits of Jersey Courts (FOI)

Request

I would like to see copies of the Human Rights Audits that were conducted into workings of all Jersey's Courts the Magistrates Court, Royal Court(s), Family Courts and so on prior to the implementation of the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000. All States Departments and quangos had to conduct these audits and I believe the Courts were also audited. I would also like to know who carried out the audits and to whom they reported their findings.

Response

Copies of the Human Rights audits for the Judicial Greffe and the Viscount’s Department were released to Deputy Michael Higgins in response to an oral request made publicly by him in the States Chambers.

These documents are provided below:

Judicial Greffe Compliance

Judicial Greffe Compliance: summary of recommendations

Judicial Greffe Data Protection Registry Compliance

Judicial Greffe: Human Rights Audit April: 2001

Judicial Greffe to President of Tourism Committee re Human Rights

Viscount's Department Compliance

Viscount's Department Compliance: summary

These audits were carried out by the Master of the Royal Court and reported to the Judicial Greffier and Viscount. The Master of the Royal Court stated that the reports were exclusively for the benefit of the Judicial Greffier and Viscount and were to be relied on solely by them although he would not object to copies being disclosed to third parties provided that this was made clear.

The audit of the Viscount’s Department under Insolvency Functions, paragraph 16 ‘Administration of Désastre Proceedings’ reports that a separate review of the operation of the Désastre Section in relation to Human Rights considerations had been carried out on behalf of the Viscount by the London solicitors Messrs. Lovells. Discussion and analysis of the human rights aspects of Jersey insolvency law is publicly available in ‘Chapter 7 – Human Rights’ of the book ‘Jersey Insolvency and Asset Tracking’ by Anthony Dessain and Michael Wilkins [Key Haven Publications Ltd, ISBN 978-1-901614-67-1]: the 2nd edition of this book was updated after the above mentioned review by Lovells and the current 5th edition discusses the law as at 30 June 2016.