PRESS RELEASE: FORMAL COMPLAINT AGAINST HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER OVER LACK OF PRISON OVERSIGHT

A formal complaint has been lodged against the Minister for Home Affairs alleging a failure to ensure independent and procedurally fair oversight of complaints concerning the States of Jersey Prison Service.

The complaint, submitted under the Ministerial Code, argues that complaints concerning prison conduct and decision-making are routinely redirected back to the Prison Service itself, rather than being considered by an independent and impartial body.

The complaint further argues that this creates a structural conflict of interest whereby the subject of complaints is effectively permitted to investigate itself.

The issue is particularly significant because the Court of Appeal previously found that the Prison Service breached my human rights after I was forced to attend my father’s funeral in handcuffs following what the Court described as a flawed and unjustifiable risk assessment process.

The case was reported by Bailiwick Express:
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/handcuffing-prisoner-fathers-funeral-was-breach-human-rights/

Further reporting later confirmed that the Prison Service revised its external escort and risk assessment policies following the ruling:
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/prisons-external-escort-policy-reviewed-following-human-rights-breach/

The prison policy changes were also reported nationally by Inside Time:
https://insidetime.org/newsround/prisoner-should-not-have-been-cuffed-at-his-fathers-funeral/

Those reports confirm that the Court ruling resulted in revisions to the prison’s escort risk assessment procedures, including requirements for more individualised assessments concerning risk, proportionality and compassionate release arrangements.

However, despite those acknowledged failings and subsequent policy revisions, no genuinely independent complaints mechanism outside of the Prison Service itself appears to have been established.

Concerns regarding disciplinary procedures, categorisation decisions, procedural fairness and complaints against prison officers continue to be redirected internally back into the same institutional structures which are the subject of complaint.

The complaint therefore alleges that the Minister has failed to ensure:

• effective independent oversight;

• procedural fairness;

• transparency in prison decision-making;

• and adequate accountability mechanisms following an established human rights breach.

The Ministerial Code requires Ministers to uphold the highest standards of propriety, accountability, professionalism and fairness in the conduct of government business.

Given that the Minister is now seeking re-election, the public is entitled to ask whether Jersey possesses a genuinely independent and procedurally fair mechanism for reviewing complaints involving one of the most coercive powers exercised by the State: the administration of prisons and deprivation of liberty.

This matter is not simply about an individual grievance. It concerns whether Jersey’s prison complaints system is capable of independent scrutiny when fundamental rights are engaged.

Further information and supporting documentation can be provided upon request.