the beginning of the seventeenth century did not pass the Channel Islands by. Guernsey was more inclined to favour the Parliamentarian cause while Sir George Carteret, then both Bailiff and Governor of Jersey, was emphatically a Royalist. Jersey's privateers, clothed with a form of legitimacy by Letters of Marque, plied the English Channel harrying ships flying the flag of Oliver Cromwell. After the execution of King Charles I in London in 1649, it was in Jersey's Royal Square, when the news arrived 18 days later, that his son was formally proclaimed King. Twice during this period the future King Charles II was received in safety in the island. Eventually, however, Cromwell's forces succeeded in reducing the Bailiwick; Carteret surrendered with honour and was permitted to leave for France. During the eight-year period before


the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 there occurred the only attempt to incorporate Jersey into the realm of England. Cromwell sent down a peremptory note, in English, directing that the Bailiwick should elect two representatives to serve as MPs at Westminster. The States considered at length how best to respond, for Cromwell was not a man to be slighted. Eventually, it is said, the reply went out thanking the Protector for his message, but regretting that the Islanders could not understand it, for their language was French. By then Cromwell had more pressing matters in hand and the danger had passed. In 1660 Charles II was restored to the


throne and expressed his gratitude by ordering the manufacture of a magnificent silver gilt mace, four feet nine and a half inches long and weighing 237 ounces. It was presented to Sir George Carteret, once more Bailiff, in November 1663. On the foot knop of the Mace an inscription in Latin is engraved, which reads in translation :


Not all doth he deem worthy of such a reward. Charles II, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, as a proof of his royal affection towards the Isle of Jersey (in which he has been twice received in safety when he was excluded from the remainder of his dominions) has willed that this Royal Mace should be consecrated to posterity and has ordered that hereafter it shall be carried before the Bailiffs, in perpetual remembrance of


their fidelity not only to his August father Charles I but to His Majesty during the fury of the Civil Wars, when the Island was maintained by the illustrious Philip and George Carteret, Knights, Bailiffs and Governors of the said Island.


At sittings of the States, the Mace is borne ceremonially into the Chamber before the Bailiff and is placed upright in a socket in front of the Chair.


Evolving authorities In 1771 a Code of Laws was enacted with the sanction of the Privy Council. It included an important provision removing the residual power of the Royal Court to make regulations and ordinances. The process of separating judicial and legislative power had begun, although the Jurats were to continue to sit in the States Assembly for another 170 years. It was not until the constitutional


reforms which followed the liberation from German occupation in 1945 that the Jurats and the rectors were removed from the Assembly and replaced by 12 Senators and a number of Deputies. The Assembly still contains three different types of Member: 12 Senators, 12 Connétables and 29 Deputies (a total of 53), but all are elected to office by their different constituencies. The German occupation, which lasted


between June 1940 and May 1945, can be seen in retrospect to have been the seminal event in the emergence of an Assembly which was more democratic and more confident. Parliamentary government had been


effectively suspended during the stifling period of occupation, although the States did continue to meet to agree a budget and ocasionally for other purposes. Administrative authority over the civil population was delegated to a Superior Council of eight Members chaired by the Bailiff. Their regulations were, however, subject to the endorsement of the German Feldkommandant. The link with the Crown-in-Council


had been ruptured, the Lieutenant Governor had been withdrawn, and the Bailiff authorized to act in his place. The inhabitants of the Bailiwick were effectively on their own.


Liberation then a new international threat The fresh air of liberation brought a


2 The Parliamentarian 2008/Issue One - Jersey


determination to reform ancient constitutional forms. States procedures were revised and Members introduced Standing Orders modelled upon those of the House of Commons at Westminster. As already stated, the composition of the Assembly was restructured. The Lieutenant Governor remained a


Member of the States Assembly, but his functions became essentially ceremonial. By tradition he now speaks only twice during his term of office, the first at the special sitting to welcome him to the Bailiwick, and the second at the sitting immediately before his departure. Members of the Assembly found a


new strength to assert responsibility for the affairs of the island and were encouraged in that aspiration by a benevolent Home Department in the United Kingdom. Social security and health insurance systems were introduced. The professional police force was reformed and a comprehensive tax statute introduced. The division of constitutional


responsibility between the government of Jersey and the U.K. government was in theory straightforward: the U.K. was responsible for the defence of the Bailiwick and for its international representation, and Jersey was responsible for the rest. In practice the constitutional


demarcation line is not always so easy to find. Even in the 1950s international agreements were becoming a source of concern in that the Bailiwick found itself becoming bound by treaties entered into by the U.K. touching upon matters which fell within the sphere of competence of the States. The so-called Foreign Office Letters of 1951 issued by the U.K. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made it clear that U.K. procedures would be adapted to ensure that the Bailiwick and the other Crown Dependencies of Guernsey and the Isle of Man were not "bound by treaties on which they had not been consulted or which, when they were consulted, they did not wish to have applied to [them]". It was fortunate, from Jersey's


perspective, that this process was well established by the time the U.K. negotiated entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1972. Initially it was thought that the choice lay between becoming part of the EEC on the coat-tails of the U.K. and becoming a


Constitutional Relationships


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