Reform Jersey and conflicts of interest (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States Greffe and published on 03 June 2020.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

​Request

Jersey's only Political Party - Reform Jersey claims to hold Jersey's Council of Ministers to account.

Bearing in mind that Senator Sam Mézec, as one of the co-founders of Reform Jersey, is in the Council of Ministers, so is fully involved in the decision making process, I would like to know how this works in practice?

I would also like to know what safeguards are in place in order to stop Political Parties exercising a biased conflict of interest, if it came to connected Party Members being able to Scrutinise their own co-members within the Council of Ministers?

Response

The information is exempt from disclosure under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

The information may be found in the response to a previous Freedom of Information request on the same matter. The response may be found at the link below:

Performance of the Minister for Children and Housing (FOI)

Article applied

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

This response has been issued on behalf of the States Greffe. The States Greffe is responsible for the information held by (and on behalf of) both itself and the States Assembly. Neither the States Assembly nor the States Greffe form part of the Government of Jersey and the Government was not involved either in the examination and retrieval of any information required for this response, nor in the drafting of the response itself.