Lack of petition system 'insult to democracy'

There are calls for Guernsey to have a central petition website and rules for how many signatures are needed for government to respond, as is the case in the UK and Jersey.

Josh Le Moignan has created a website specifically for Guernsey, with one of the first petitions calling for laws to be introduced that will make the States have to respond or debate ones with "significant public support".

He said: "I thought that it would be a great tool for the Guernsey people, and a great tool for democracy on the island."

The BBC has asked the States of Guernsey for comment.

Le Moignan said he thought of the idea of creating voiced.gg after seeing Jersey had a system where politicians had to respond or debate if a petition reached a certain number of signatures.

He said: "Obviously there are petition websites available but the differentiator here is, when you get a petition beyond a certain milestone, currently set at 1,000 signatures, the system automatically emails the petition to every single deputy.

"[It] provides a special reply address so they can reply and issue their response effectively to the petition that will then be publicly posted for everybody to see."

He believes it's an "insult to democracy" that Guernsey does not yet have the legislation in place.

The governments in the UK and Jersey have e-petitions available on their websites.

The UK first introduced e-petitions in 2006, with the current system launching in 2015. The government will respond after 10,000 signatures with a debate possible after 100,000 signatures.

Jersey brought in e-petitions in 2018, with 1,000 signatures getting a response from a minister and 5,000 signatures triggering a debate in the States Chamber.

William Millow, deputy greffier at the States of Jersey, said there has been some criticism of the system.

"I'm aware that there have been members of the States in the past and also petitioners who are not happy that if a petition reaches 5000 signatures, it's only an in-committee debate that is achieved automatically, it's not a debate on a proposition with a vote at the end of it."

Sophie Dorfner, from the Vape Bar, set up a petition earlier this year to try to stop the introduction of rules that banned under-18s on the premises of vape shops and also meant vapes needed to be out of sight.

She said she would like to see rules similar to Jersey and the UK introduced.

Dorfner said: "We put in complaints and we tried to speak to people before it came into force and that had no impact whatsoever.

"We got no responses or the responses we did get were just copies and and we went down getting a petition done and we had over 1,400 signatures and at the end of the day they just said we're not changing our mind."

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