Reviewing the way Guernsey dishes out Justice

Saturday 15 February 2020

There has been a hold up on a planned review into the island's criminal justice framework.

A report compiling the views of all the island's stakeholders in the justice system now needs to be redrafted, because some of the data it needed was not given in in time, and some of it was inaccurate.

Home Affairs said the problems arose because it took too long for a number of groups and committees to send statistics and data to the person working on the report.

The review into the Criminal Justice Framework is set to bring ideas like alternative sentencing to the forefront, and will also be a chance for the States to address any injustices it currently feels are enshrined in law. This could theoretically be the chance the States have to direct the Courts to deal with cannabis more lightly, for example.

When this delayed report is done, it will be stapled to a Green Paper and sent to the States for debate. The Committee still want to have that debate this side of the election. It will give the States the chance to decide which areas of the current Justice Framework need the most work, and direct Home Affairs on where they should be working. 

Pictured: Deputy Mary Lowe told the Scrutiny Management Committee that the report had been held up because various data had not been provided.

The Committee will then - most likely in the next term, after the election - take that feedback forward to put a full policy letter together, which will, all going to plan, be the States' chance to overhaul the Justice Framework. So, if the States in the initial debate decide alternative sentencing ideas need researching, Home Affairs will go away, look into them, come up with some ideas and bring them back to the States, alongside any other work streams they have been told to look in to. All of this work will take months, if not years. 

Deputy Mary Lowe, Home Affairs President, said it was still her Committee's aim to get the green paper to the States before the end of this term. 

"It is important this review is done properly, because the justice framework is so important and so broad," she said, "so reluctantly we decided we had to pause it after a discussion with P&R. It would be quite dangerous if that information is inaccurate."

Pictured: Deputy Marc Leadbeater agreed this was the most important piece of work the committee had been doing. 

She also emphasised that it was one of, if not the, top priority for her Committee, which has a wide reaching mandate.

The Justice Review itself is set to be done over three phases. One has already been completed, and this report and green letter is part of phase two. Phase three will see the policy letter put together. 

The policy letter itself will come next term, in at least eight or nine months, depending how much work the States direct Home Affairs to do in the green paper debate. After that, any decisions the States make in the final policy letter debate will likely take years to roll out, as legislation will need to be drafted, and subsequent bits of policy worked on.

Pictured top: Deputy Mary Lowe.