Documents setting out the establishment of the ECCU from Justice and Home Affairs

​​Request 735507277

Please can you provide copies of any documents setting out the legal basis for the establishment of the ECCU and for vesting in the ECCU legal jurisdiction for carrying out criminal investigations, which is otherwise the responsibility of the States of Jersey Police (SOJP).

It is thought likely that: (a) the Department for the Economy; (b) Justice and Home Affairs; and (c) the States of Jersey Police, should have relevant information.

There is a clear public interest in such information being released, not least because of the considerable amount of public funds spent on (and by) the ECCU.

Response

The Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) does not hold the requested information and therefore Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.​​​​

Internal Review Request

Thank you for your email of 11 August 2025, attaching the response issued by the SPA, Justice and Home Affairs (the "Response").

I note that the SPA has responded that it does not hold any documents setting out the legal basis for the establishment of the ECCU.

The response may be considered surprising given that police officers have previously been seconded to the ECCU - page 11 of the Jersey Police Annual Report 2022, for example, states that three officers are seconded to the ECCU - and the Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police (SOJP) is accountable to the SPA. If there is a legal basis for the establishment of the ECCU, one may therefore have expected information about this to have been provided to the SPA.

Unfortunately, the response contains no detail of the searches undertaken by the SPA to identify whether any information is held. As such, and given the response, I have concerns about whether the SPA has carried out adequate searches for the requested information.

I am therefore writing to request an internal review of the Response.

As part of the internal review, I would request that particular attention is given to the adequacy (or otherwise) of the searches for the requested information. Amongst other things, it would be helpful if the internal review response could please clarify: (a) what search terms were used by the SPA, (b) that the searches were not limited to Cryoserver but also included other digital records, and (c) whether manual were searches conducted, including reviews of both physical files and digital folders.

Internal Review Response

This internal review has been conducted by an official of appropriate seniority who has not been involved in the original decision. As part of their review, they will be expected to understand the reasons behind the original response, impartially determine whether the response should be revised, and how so, considering the request and the information held, any relevant exemptions, or other relevant matters under the Law.

The Internal Review Panel was asked to review the original response and confirm the following: 

Does the FOI request relate to a body to which the Law applies, or information held by a body covered by the Law?

i. Was the right information searched for and reviewed?

ii. Was the information supplied appropriately?

iii. Was information appropriately withheld in accordance with the articles applied and were the public interest test/ prejudice test properly applied?

The Internal Review Panel requested that further searches be completed on recommended platforms, with the search terms ‘ECCU’, ‘Economic Crime and Confiscation Unit’, ‘Roskill Model’ and ‘Roskill Report.’

Further searches were carried out on the email account of Justice and Home Affairs’ (JHA) Chief Officer and from the suggested searches only one email was in scope of this request.

Following discussion, it was agreed by the Panel that the decision was overturned as Article 3 should be removed. This was due to one document in scope being held. The panel agreed that Article 27 and Article 31 should be applied to the document. This is in line with JOIC decision notice: foi-05-decision-notice-cas-04931.pdf​. The decision notice stated that the document was properly withheld by the Department for the Economy (the SPA).

The panel also noted that the internal review request states that the response ‘may be considered surprising given that police officers have previously been seconded to the ECCU’, however the panel noted that the SoJP are a separate SPA to JHA.

Articles applied

Article 27 - National security 

(1) Information which does not fall within Article 26A (1) is absolutely exempt information if exemption from the obligation to disclose it under this Law is required to safeguard national security. 

(2) Except as provided by paragraph (3), a certificate signed by the Chief Minister certifying that the exemption is required to safeguard national security is conclusive evidence of that fact. 

(3) A person aggrieved by the decision of the Chief Minister to issue a certificate under paragraph (2) may appeal to the Royal Court on the grounds that the Chief Minister did not have reasonable grounds for issuing the certificate. 

(4) The decision of the Royal Court on the appeal shall be final. 

Article 31 - Advice by the Bailiff, Deputy Bailiff or a Law Officer 

Information is qualified exempt information if it is, or relates to, the provision of advice by the Bailiff, Deputy Bailiff or the Attorney General or the Solicitor General. 

Public Interest Test 

Whilst it is accepted that there may be some public interest in disclosing information regarding the legal basis for the establishment of the ECCU and vesting in the ECCU legal jurisdiction for carrying out criminal investigations, there are many competing arguments which suggest that on balance, there is greater public interest in keeping the document confidential, the same clearly forming part of and relating to the legal advice provided in such documents. 

The purpose of such confidentiality being to protect fully informed decision-making by allowing government to seek legal advice in private, without fear of any adverse inferences being drawn from the content of the advice or the fact that it was sought - or the scope of the same. 

Whilst it is recognised that the strong public interest in protecting Law Officers’ advice may still be overridden in some cases, if there are particularly strong factors in favour of disclosure, the disclosure could inhibit the manner in which Law Officers advice is taken and / or provided and real weight ought to be afforded to this aspect of the Law Officers’ Convention. 

Further, it is not considered appropriate nor in the public interest to disclose the scope of the private advice which those investigating and or prosecuting financial crime may benefit from when undertaking the same.​