The Channel Islands include two separate Crown dependencies, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey. They are considered the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, and are not part of the United Kingdom. As such the UK Conservative Party doesn’t operate here, so the following information is purely for the curious.

Jersey

Jersey’s unicameral legislature is the Assembly of the States of Jersey. It includes fifty-one elected members: ten senators (elected on an island-wide basis), twelve Connétables (often called ‘constables’, heads of parishes) and twenty-nine deputies (representing constituencies), all elected for four-year terms. There are also five non-voting members appointed by the Crown: the Bailiff, the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey, the Dean of Jersey, the Attorney General and Solicitor General.

The Assembly of the States of Jersey has exercised uncontested legislative powers since 1771, when the concurrent law-making power of the Royal Court of Jersey was abolished.

Members are elected via First Past the Post, with an island wide multimember constituency in the case of Senators and a mixture of single and multimember wards for Deputies. Connétables are elected from single member parishes. Voters have as many votes as there are positions to fill. Jersey requires photo ID at the polling station and allows 16 and 17 year olds to vote.

Guernsey

The Bailiwick of Guernsey is divided into three jurisdiction with their own elected governments.

States of Guernsey

The States of Guernsey is the parliament of the British Crown dependency of Guernsey. Some laws and ordinances approved by the States of Guernsey also apply to Alderney and Sark (the other component parts of the Bailiwick of Guernsey) as “Bailiwick-wide legislation” with the consent of the governments of those islands. The States of Deliberation consists of 45 People’s Deputies, elected from multi-member districts every four years. Like Jersey, voting is allowed from the age of 16.

There are seven Electoral Districts with each District electing five or six Deputies depending on their size. Voters have as many votes as there are seats to fill.

States of Alderney

Government of Alderney is carried out by the States of Alderney which consists of a President and ten States Members elected via First Past the Post in a single island wide constituency with as many votes as there are seats to fill. Unlike Guernsey ad Jersey, the voting age is 18 on Alderney.

Chief Pleas

The Parliament of Sark is the Chief Pleas and is comprised of 28 elected Conseillers and two unelected members. Fifty-seven candidates (12% of the population) stood for 28 seats in the Chief Pleas in 2008, each voter received 28 votes in one island wide constituency. Conseillers serve four-year terms with half elected every two years. The voting age is 18.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>