Misconduct complaints used to be dealt with by a panel of members, some of whom were former deputies, but they are now investigated by a single commissioner, with appeals heard by another individual acting alone.
That change has had unforeseen consequences, according to States Assembly & Constitution Committee president Sarah Hansmann Rouxel.
‘I think a number of mistakes were made and it was not quite understood how the commissioner would work in our model,’ she said.
‘There have already been discussions around having only one person, as opposed to being able to bounce off more than one person, and I think that was a big flaw in the process, particularly the appeals process.
‘It seems ironic that we come from a consensus system where there is so much having to check your thoughts and test them against other people’s opinions, to move to a code of conduct where one person has such individual control as opposed to being able to bounce off more people.’
Standards commissioner Melissa McCullough resigned late last year when a majority of the States, including every member of Sacc, voted against her recommendation to suspend Deputy Gavin St Pier. Appeals commissioner Martin Jelley also left.
Andrew Ozanne has since been appointed as standards commissioner on an interim basis and is expected to hold the role for the foreseeable future.
Deputy Hansmann Rouxel told the latest Guernsey Press Politics Podcast that she regretted Dr McCullough’s resignation but did not regret voting against the proposed suspension which led to her exit. She defended the right of the Assembly to make such decisions and did not see that being a problem while Mr Ozanne was in the post.
‘I don’t think we needed to explain that to the new commissioner. He had that understanding already,’ she said.
Deputy David Goy recently told the podcast that the code of conduct was restricting States members’ freedom of speech and discouraging them from standing up for the public who elected them. He has drafted sweeping changes which would allow States members to speak and act as they wished as long as they were not breaking the law.
Former deputy Peter Roffey has claimed that members’ conduct was generally of a higher standard before the code was introduced 20 years ago.
Deputy Hansmann Rouxel said it was ‘a fair question’ to ask whether it should be scrapped, but indicated that her committee may look to make more modest changes in the hope of improving conduct and limiting misuse of the code.
There are understood to be at least two code of conduct complaints with Mr Ozanne at the moment.