The first thing that I noticed was that the prayers in this Court are said in English rather than French; a very odd exception which may or may not mean something, perhaps Cyril can tell me?
The matter at hand was whether GST is chargeable on the rentals in the public markets.
The public markets are a TRUST; the Settlors are the public of Jersey in the 19th Century, the administrators are the States of Jersey and the Beneficiaries the public of Jersey since 1847 and the future public of Jersey.
I have detailed the case at length in previous posts but for the past five months the matter has been passed up the chain of command and today landed before the Magistrate Peter Harris who promptly passed the matter up to the Royal Court as it is a matter of 'great public importance'.
The one thing comment I did receive was that my Notices of Understanding and Intent and Notice of Default were spurious and this is probably the case they were not witnessed by a Notary Public but they were distributed to many upstanding members of the community.
I therefore went back and just double checked the law on the points I had raised and I still cannot see how I can be wrong and after five months of people passing it up the chain of command until it has no further to go I believe I must be onto something.
One part of presenting a case on a point of law is to go back to the Hansard of the debate so that the Court can recognise the intentions of the legislature when it passed the law.
The relevant Hansard is surprisingly light on amendments, issues raised and matter clarified, there is not much help at all from our States Members in clarifying their intent when they passed this law and I would hope that in future they would bare this in mind when debating legislation.
It is important that any matters which might be discussed 'behind closed doors' and a deal reached should also form part of the debate so that the public might rely on the assurances thereby given in future Court cases.
2011 £653,000
2010 £599,000
2009 £565,000
2008 £522,000
2007 £480,000
2006 £465,000
2005 £441,000
2004 £397,000
2003 £377,000
(Source: States of Jersey Financial Reports)
But page xi of the 2006 accounts reveals that expenditure in Jersey has increased by more than inflation every year but one and sometimes more than double inflation.
What none of the members of the 2007 house pointed out was that the 'black hole' of £45 million was in fact solely as a result of budgeted increases in expenditure, you will note that between 2007 and 2008 (GST was introduced in 2008) that the expenditure increased by £42 million and has increased on average by £42 million pounds a year ever since.
The problem is not going away the budget for 2012 to 2014 despite claims of 'savings' is for £655 million, £657 million and then £698 million in 2014, although no doubt in election year we will make further 'savings' and only spend £675 million.
GST was only necessary because of States profligacy in 2008, it only went up to 5% in 2011 because of continuing States profligacy and it seems that by 2015 it will have to go up to 10% unless something is done to stop the States from wasting our money; the very money which they extort from us with threats against our freedom.
Do you really trust these fools with YOUR money?
