Guernsey Press

Secrecy does democracy no favours

THE continuing lack of information about last week's private meeting of Sark's Chief Pleas calls into question the island's commitment to open government. All people know is that a meeting was called at short notice – 48 hours rather than the usual 21 days – and the subject matter was private, confidential and sensitive. The public gallery was cleared and a joint report from Harbours and Shipping and Finance & Resources discussed in secret.

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To his credit, the speaker of the Chief Pleas had the good grace to be uncomfortable with the position in which he found himself and he apologised that Sark's populace was not being told what its government was doing.

He also said that 'nothing could be put into the public domain until there is a vote'.

Yet with the vote presumably taken, no official statement has been made, no member of the government has made any comment and the only indication of what was discussed has come from the managing director of Isle of Sark Shipping, who says that he has been unfairly dismissed.

And all the Sark Committee Office would say was that no statement would be made.

It seems that it is not only the skies of Sark that are impenetrably dark but also its politics.

It remains unclear why the conduct of a company director had to be dealt with by the island's parliament rather than the company itself.

And why, having held the meeting in camera, it was not possible to say anything in public afterwards without damaging the island's legal position is also hard to fathom.

Instead, the field has been left open to (former?) Sark MD Paul Garlick, who has made some strong statements of his own about Sark's government and the company's four non-executive directors, all of whom have declined to comment.

For an island that has struggled to fill its political posts and been accused by its critics of being little more than a private club it is troubling that it does not value transparent government more highly. Nothing alienates voters and potential candidates more than secrecy and this meeting only increases the sense of a government distanced from a section of its electorate.

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