CONSTITUTION OF GUERNSEY.

Guernsey is the second in size of the four Channel Isles, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, which one used to repeat with such gusto in one’s schoolboy days. The Channel Isles are the last remnant of our French possessions. Or rather, as the Islanders might claim and as it is reported some do England belongs by right of conquest to the Channel Isles. However that may be, for all practical purposes, the government of Guernsey is autonomous and very jealously does the Guernseyman guard this autonomy.

It has its own Parliament, “The States” (Les Etats), consisting to-day of 49 Members. At the time of which we write there were 32 Members, as follows:

The Bailiff, who, as at the present time, acted as President.

The Procureur du Roi, corresponding to our Attorney-General.

12 Jurats or Magistrates, appointed for life by the “States of Election.”

8 Rectors.

10 Connétables or Parishioners.

The Rectors as spiritual leaders and the Connétables as civil functionaries represented the ten parishes of the island, and though the latter were elected to office they were always from the leading families, which formed an extremely close oligarchy. Bailiff, Jurats and Rectors still sit in this undifferentiated Parliament, to which has been added a slightly more democratic element however, nine Deputies being elected by the Ratepayers of the whole Island.

It was, and still is, the Bailiff’s duty to summon this “States of Deliberation,” formerly at his own discretion, now at regular intervals. He does this by means of issuing a Billet d’Etat, in which he comments on the business to come before the States and in which he formulates certain resolutions. On these resolutions the States only vote for or against. This Billet d’Etat is in French, still the official language the only one used in the deliberations in former days.

The whole takes us back in thought to Norman or early English times. Probably even the Norman patois of the modern rural deputies is the speech of the present time nearest to that in which our ancestors transacted their business.

This legislative body represents the King’s Council, in the same way that the supreme judicial body, still bearing the name of La Cour Royale, represents the King’s Court.

The decisions of the States are subject to the approval of the Privy Council, to whom there is a right of appeal.