Government of Jersey

Extension of The Protection of Trading Interest Act 1980 to Jersey (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States Greffe and published on 01 December 2015.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

I am seeking information regarding the reasons for the extension of The Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 to Jersey, which was accomplished by means of The Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 (Jersey) Order 1983, registered in the Royal Court on 22 April 1983.

I understand that there may have been correspondence between the Governor’s office, the Law Officers Department and the Bailiff’s Chambers in advance of the Order going before the Court for registration. I would be interested to see this correspondence, as well as any other documentation which may be of relevance.

Response

A copy of the information which can be disclosed is below with certain redactions applied. The redacted information is exempt under Article 31 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Download correspondence and documentation in relation to FOI request (size 96kb)

The remainder of the information that you requested is exempt under Article 31 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 and is, therefore, withheld.

Exemption(s)

Freedom of Information exemption applied:

Article 31 Advice by the Bailiff, Deputy Bailiff or a Law Officer

Information is qualified exempt information if it is or relates to the provision of advice by the Bailiff, Deputy Bailiff or the Attorney General or the Solicitor General.

Justification for exemption

The public interest in respect of Article 31 is weighted in favour of maintaining the exemption unless equally strong countervailing public interest arguments favour the disclosure of the information. There is a public interest in transparency and it is desirable for governments to be accountable for the decisions made. However, governments are entitled to seek uninhibited legal advice and ought to be free to either act or disregard the legal advice received. No government should feel compelled to either seek or act on legal advice given and for these reasons the public interest arguments in favour of disclosure are not sufficient to overcome the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

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.