Issue no. 149 - 24th April 2017 - Price 90p
UNELECTED CHIEF PLEAS SPECIAL EDITION
A FRAUD ON THE
PEOPLE OF SARK
Sark’s wholly unelected
‘parliament’ will convene on
Wednesday morning this week.
Furthermore, and as has been
the case for over eight years
since the Reform Law of 2008
came into force, not one of those
30 items addresses the crisis in
which the British Crown Dependency of Sark undeniably
finds itself after eight years of
totalitarian rule.
Presiding from his carved
throne on the raised dais will be
unelected feudal lord Christopher Beaumont; a UK resident
who would not even have been
eligible to vote if there had been
such a thing as elections in Sark.
The big question is, will the Lt.
Governor, Vice Admiral Sir Ian
Corder, grace the assembly with
his presence? He was noticeably
absent at the last four meetings
of Sark’s sham parliament.
HM the Queen and her
representative in these Islands,
Lt. Governor Vice Admiral
Sir Ian Corder
Will he, on Wednesday, ensconce himself on the raised dais
alongside the unelected feudal
lord, thereby delivering Her
Majesty’s tacit approval of
Western Europe’s only dictatorship?
Instead, we are, as ever, confronted with the smugly pompous and self-serving one ruling
party merry-go-round. All of
which has been decided beforehand anyway during the Secret
Parliament - the meetings which
take place four times as often as
the public ones, from which the
public are barred and no
minutes published.
Will Sir Ian wish to associate
himself and the Crown he represents with unelected ‘president’
Arthur Rolfe, a thug who verbally and physically attacked a
defenceless young woman but
refuses to apologise? Only time
will tell.
One thing is for certain, if he
finds an excuse not to attend, Sir
Ian will not miss the excruciating spectacle that will follow,
when the unelected members of
Sark’s unelected and selfserving ‘parliament’ take the
opportunity afforded them under the opening items for pompous posturing, grandstanding
and lying, safely protected by
parliamentary privilege.
If so minded, the absentee feudal
lord will speak too, to announce
to the general public who he has
chosen as his deputy to exercise
his autocratic powers on his behalf during his prolonged absence.
The lack of democracy and democratic process, the absence of
anything resembling good governance, the destroyed economy,
the devastating depopulation none of these pressing problems
are addressed on the agenda set
up by Sark’s sham, unelected
‘government’.
All we know so far is that where
the power-hungry and deeply
unpopular Janet Guy’s name
used to appear under ‘Deputy
Seigneur’ on the one-party
state’s website’s contact page, it
now ominously says “vacancy”.
With all of 30 items, Wednesday’s agenda is a long one.
That’s immaterial. The fact is
that all items have been set by
unelected individuals, not one of
whom has received a single vote,
not one of whom represents the
people and not one of whom has
a mandate to do anything at all
on behalf of this Island’s people.
2
No one has voted for these people, who represent no one but
themselves and their feudal lord.
No one has given them a mandate to make laws, administrate
laws, raise taxes or collect taxes.
No one has given them a mandate for their overtly malicious,
spiteful and self-serving
‘policies’. No one has given
them a mandate to destroy this
Island, economically, demographically or socially. The resolutions and decisions made by
Sark’s wholly unelected parliament have, in short, no validity.
What a sham. What a fraud on
the people of Sark who in vain
have been waiting over eight
years now for the democracy
they were promised to materialise.
NO MANDATE TO SET THIS AGENDA
NO MANDATE TO VOTE IT THROUGH
WEDNESDAY’S AGENDA
ITEM 6 is correcting an embarrassing error in the new Medical
Practitioners’ Law, which saw
Chief Pleas claim powers it
doesn’t have.
ITEM 7 contains some reluctant
further changes to the licensing
law.
ITEM 8 is Sark and Brexit, featuring the unelected and self-elevated
‘chief minister’ Charles Maitland’s dishonest representations to
the Justice Select Committee.
ITEM 9 sets the unelected speaker’s term of office at three years.
Sark is stuck with a thug as speaker for a long time yet.
ITEM 10 is a reshuffling of the
deck chairs of the Titanic due to
the shrinking number of members
of Sark’s unelected parliament.
ITEM 11 is tinkering with the
rules of procedure of the unelected
sham parliament.
ITEM 12 is a report on the extremely slow progress of obtaining
a ‘Top Level’ internet domain for
Sark - the costs of which have not
been ascertained.
ITEM 13 is also embarrassing.
The Secret Parliament which
meets behind closed doors every
month to deal with all Chief Pleas
business privately and unaccountably is at risk of not being quorate
because there are only 23 Conseillers and they presently need 15
for a quorum. The proposal is to
reduce that to just 50% of Conseillers plus one, which takes them
down to 12.5 for a quorum under
the proposed new rule.
ITEM 14 presents the usual ‘No
Progress Report’ on the unelected
parliament’s unmandated ‘policy’
to ‘Save Sark’s Future’. We are,
however, promised a ‘verbal report’ from Charles Maitland on
how to take things forward after a
series of failed sham elections.
ITEM 15 contains the financial
statements for 2016, which are no
longer audited. Sark is only in
profit because it has not spent
what was budgeted. The underspend was £84,420. The Procureur overspent her budget by
£8,364, while just £33,686 was
spent on health services and
£24,191 on police, Customs, prisons and fisheries, which is only a
tiny fraction of the real cost borne
by the Guernsey taxpayer. If the
true cost of running Sark were
taken into account, it would be
bust. Sark is no longer viable, no
longer able to pay for itself.
ITEM 16 tells us that the unelected Harbours & Shipping Committee will be given the power to decide which of Sark’s few remaining businesses will be handed a
rebate on freight rates to export
goods to Guernsey.
production of alcoholic beverages
- will become law despite the fact
that there no longer are any vineyards for the one ruling party
state to tax.
ITEM 25 makes it clear that the
only point of Roger Venne QC’s
damning review of the feudal
lord’s court to be followed up by
Sark’s unelected ‘government’ is
the question of salaries. The people of Sark will still be denied
their basic human right to a fair
trial before an experienced, qualified and unbiased judge and they
will be paying more for the privilege.
ITEM 26 informs us that the
rogue state of Sark will continue
to freeload on Guernsey’s and Jersey’s agreement with Normandy but without allowing Normandy’s
citizens direct access to Sark, of
course.
ITEM 17 suggests that the new
toilets at La Coupée be paid for by
the Dame Sibyl Hathaway Settlement. No one says what the new
facilities are to be connected to.
The waste is set to be lobbed
straight over the cliff face at
Sark’s most iconic spot.
ITEM 27 promises another attempt to find some unelected person willing to act as Arthur
Rolfe’s deputy.
ITEM 18 is about budget control.
What budget when there’s no
economy underpinning it?
ITEM 29 introduces a very long
overdue ‘Code of Conduct’ for the
unelected members of Sark’s parliament. Perhaps.
ITEM 19 proposes an education
review. It’s too little too late.
Soon there won’t be any school
children left in Sark.
ITEM 20 informs us that the
slaughterhouse needs a £60 100,000 upgrade before Sark produced meat can be exported to
Guernsey.
ITEM 21 sees unelected members
of parliament being ‘elected’ to
committees.
ITEM 22 is more of the same.
ITEM 23 tells us that the lighthouse is being modernised.
ITEM 24 shows that the infamous
‘vineyard tax’ - the unique tax on
3
ITEM 28 plays catch-up to update
the law on paternity and maintenance of “illegitimate” children.
ITEM 30 informs us that the Class
3 teacher has resigned. Do we really need a replacement? Are
there enough children left in
Sark’s school? The report doesn’t
say, but six children have left the
Island for good only this month.
All of the above will be approved
and / or voted through before
lunch because a meeting with all
Conseillers has been scheduled at
the Board Room at the Island
Hall, where HM Comptroller, Mrs
M Pullum, will be conducting a
seminar on Brexit. This will, of
course, do no more good for the
disenfranchised people of this Island than the meeting of the wholly unelected ‘parliament’ earlier
in the day.
COPY OF THIS ISSUE OF
THE SARK NEWSPAPER
HAS BEEN DISTRIBUTED TO THE FOLLOWING:
President of the European Court of Human Rights,
Mr Guido Raimondi
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights,
Mr Nils Muižnieks
Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Mr António Guterres
Minister of State for the Ministry of Justice,
Sir Oliver Heald QC
Home Secretary,
The Rt. Hon. Amber Rudd
HM the Queen’s Private Secretary,
Sir Christopher Geidt KCVO OBE PC
Lt. Governor of Guernsey,
Vice Admiral Sir Ian Corder KBE CB
BULLYING
The Sark Newspaper’s readers are once
again reminded that if you are being
bullied, intimidated or harassed in any
way and wish to seek support, help or
legal advice, please do not hesitate to
call, write or e-mail me at the Sark
Newspaper’s address. What you say will
be in the strictest confidence unless you
give your consent otherwise.
Kevin Delaney
The Sark Newspaper is edited and published on Sark by its proprietor Sark resident Kevin Delaney
E-mail Editor in Chief Kevin Delaney: [email protected]
Deputy Editor John Donnelly
website: www.sarknewspaper.com
Copyright THE SARK NEWSPAPER 2017