Sacc president Sarah Hansmann Rouxel told the Assembly that the presence of the media at meetings of her committee provided a higher level of transparency.
She was responding to a question asked at last week’s States meeting by Andy Sloan, who wanted to know whether Sacc had considered ‘issues of public confidence and the potential for the Assembly’s constitutional and governance processes to be brought into disrepute’ when deciding that Deputy St Pier should not be asked to resign following his re-arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office, which he denies.
‘Sacc is the only committee which holds meetings which the media are allowed to attend,’ said Deputy Hansmann Rouxel.
‘This provides a level of transparency that innoculates against the perception that creates a belief that there is something untoward happening.’
‘One of the reasons why I am confident that what we agreed in committee has been looked at in the round is because of openness and transparency. We couldn’t be more transparent than having the media at our meetings.’
Policy & Resources and Deputy St Pier agreed that he should resign from the senior committee following his re-arrest. It was concerned that his continued membership could become a distraction while the police continue to investigate the allegations against him. He was defeated by Deputy Andrew Niles in Wednesday’s election for the vacancy on P&R.
Deputy Hansmann Rouxel said Sacc was ‘a very different committee with a smaller mandate’ containing various areas of work in which Deputy St Pier could continue to participate without difficulty.
Deputy Sloan said he was concerned about ‘the potential for Sacc to be brought into disrepute’ and asked the committee to reconsider its stance following the Assembly’s decision to deny Deputy St Pier an immediate return to P&R.
Deputy Hansmann Rouxel said Sacc had already acted fairly and proportionately and gave no indication that it would be re-examining Deputy St Pier’s membership at a future meeting.
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