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Changes to require election candidates to undergo criminal checks could be returned to the next States ahead of the 2025 election, but concerns have again been raised over the practicalities of such a system.
In January the States rejected a liberalisation of candidacy rules for convicts and instead sought to toughen them up. People will only be eligible if not sentenced to a period of six months in prison or more in the full five years preceding polling day, as well as capturing people who have absconded from prison in other jurisdictions.
Deputies also ordered investigations into requiring DBS checks for the next island wide election, and a report on public declarations of criminal convictions "as soon as practicable”.
But The States Assembly & Constitution Committee was warned by officials that getting those investigations complete and shaped into a policy with less than three months until the island will be one-year away from the next general election will prove challenging.
It’s considered best practice to not make significant changes to democratic elections within a year of them occurring.
Another official said the previous two SACC committees have investigated those changes but decided against recommending them as they found the practicalities too complicated, too resource heavy, and were unable to overcome difficulties with publicising criminal records.
SACC member Deputy Simon Fairclough said amendments have now been drafted for changing the eligibility criteria, but he questioned whether the report into criminal declarations should be completed before returning to the States.
Vice-President Deputy Gavin St Pier said as the States only directed SACC to return that report “as soon as practicable” there was no rush to include it.
Candidates do have to disclose criminal convictions when standing to the registrar but haven’t had to publicly declare them. Neither have they had to submit themselves to a standard or enhanced DBS check, or declare whether they had any non-criminal sanctions.
Similar changes to the one directed by the current States had been suggested in 2019 and several years before, but they were dismissed by the States.
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