Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2011]JRC115B

Royal Court

(Samedi)

17 June 2011

APPLICATION FOR COMMISSIONER TO RECUSE HIMSELF.

Stuart Syvret appeared in person.

Advocate S. M. Baker for the Respondents.

judgment

the commissioner:

1.        In a recent hearing, Commissioner Sumption, hearing a civil action by Mr Syvret, set out his acquaintance with, and contact with various members of the legal establishment in Jersey.  Although I think there is a strong argument in principle for not answering individual litigant's questions of this sort, I do not want Mr Syvret to think that I am going to put myself in any different position from Commissioner Sumption, so for that reason I am prepared to answer the questions that Commissioner Sumption has answered.

2.        I have done my best to recollect accurately what contact I have had, but of course I have only been doing this sitting in my retiring room for the last 10 minutes.  I have been able, however, to check the dates of my appointment.

3.        I was appointed by the then Bailiff, now Commissioner Philip Bailhache, on 20^th November, 2008, by which time I was a retired High Court Judge in England.  I was sworn in by him on 8^th December 2008, which was the first time I had ever visited this Island. 

4.        My previous knowledge of the four people named by Mr Syvret is as follows:-

(i)        The Bailiff, I came across on a few occasions in a professional capacity when he was practising at the English Bar in the 1970s.  At short notice I cannot give the exact years, though no doubt it is a matter of public record when he was practising in England and Wales.  After he returned to Jersey to practice law here I had no contact with him at all, either face to face or in any other capacity until I came here on my appointment as Commissioner. 

(ii)       The Deputy Bailiff and Commissioner Philip Bailhache, I had never met either of them before I came to the Island to be sworn in on 8^th December, 2008. 

(iii)      The present Attorney General, Mr Le Cocq, I think I must have been formally introduced to him at some stage, so far as I am aware I have never spoken to him at all.

5.        Social contact with the above named. I have never been into the houses of any of them, the closest I have been was to be in a car that was picking up the present Bailiff for a formal dinner.  I have never been entertained by any of them at their houses.  I did attend a formal dinner, I cannot now remember whether all of the three judicial members of that group were there or not, for the retiring Bailiff of Guernsey when he ceased to be a member of the Court of Appeal of Jersey.  I also on one occasion had dinner in a restaurant with the present Bailiff and Deputy Bailiff.  I had no social contact with the Deputy Bailiff when he was Attorney General and I have had no social contact with the present Attorney General.  Apart from that, as one would expect, since they are working in the same building as I have been working in, I have seen them informally in the Courts, that is to say the judicial members of that group, not the Attorney General, and on a few occasions have had lunch with one or other of them.

6.        That is the extent of my acquaintance with and social contact with that group.

7.        I decline to recuse myself from hearing this matter, it seems to me that acquaintance is so limited as to make it proper for me to adjudicate on these matters.

No Authorities