Saturday Royal Court sitting (FOI)

Request

A

How much money was spent on holding a court sitting on a Saturday for defendant Gerard Maguire at the Royal Court on 4 March?

B

Please state the total costs involved, including additional staff costs, overtime pay and so on.

Response

A

The Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies to information held in records held by a scheduled public authority at the time of receipt of the request. We do not hold records which detail the total cost of that particular sitting of the Royal Court. The proportion of overheads such as administrative staff costs, utility costs and building maintenance applicable to the particular sitting would have to be estimated and we do not hold such estimates.

The overall costs of running the Court Service are reported in Annual Reports which may be found on the States of Jersey website on the following link:

Judicial Greffe reports and documents

B

The two ushers and the court officer from the Viscount’s Department were paid overtime at time and a half. Other court staff and the judge did not receive any extra payment. We are unable to provide the cost of the ushers as they are employed by the Bailiff’s Chambers which is not a scheduled public authority under the Freedom of Information Law. Information about the any additional payment to the Viscount’s Department officer could disclose the pay rate of identifiable individuals and is therefore exempt under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. 

It should be noted that had the case run on into the next working week an extra unplanned burden would have been placed on the jury members and they may have been entitled to make claims for hardship payments to compensate for their unexpected costs. In addition making space in an already full court schedule in the following week would have imposed significant extra costs not only on the court service but on other users of the court who would have had to have their cases rescheduled.

Exemptions applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.