The Channel Island of Sark is set to embrace democracy - and other modern trends, like cars, may come next, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
WHILE OTHERS around the world may have been celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 473 electors on the Channel Island of Sark will tomorrow mark nothing less than the end of feudalism in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
For following the decision of the United Kingdom privy council earlier this year - acting in response to breaches of the European Convention, and a local poll favouring reform - voters on the island will choose 28 members of a directly elected parliament to end some 450 years of rule by landlord under a constitution framed by royal charter in 1565.
As their predecessors have since the first Queen Elizabeth's time, owners of the island's 40 divisions of land currently enjoy automatic membership of its legislative body, the Chief Pleas, while islanders elect 12 people's deputies to the parliament. The presiding officer of the Chief Pleas, Lt Col Reginald Guille, has said the change will help bring the island's government and judiciary into line with the 21st century. However, reformers like the billionaire Barclay twins, David and Frederick - who own nearby Brecqhou island, and whose autonomy from Sark they wish to preserve - face a continuing battle against those determined to keep at least some aspects of the feudal system in place. The Financial Timesyesterday reported a keen contest involving no less than 57 candidates - 12 per cent of the electorate - indicating underlying concern about change that challenges traditions such as keeping the island's roads free of cars. Having invested heavily in the island's hotels and restaurants, the Barclay brothers want to see electric cars replace the tractors that provide the only motorised transport as part of a modernisation agenda that would also provide a helipad for emergency and controlled commercial purposes.
Sark, with its own independent legislature and court, occupies a unique position within the Channel Islands, which in turn hold "an unusual position in Her Majesty's possessions", in that they are not part of the UK nor of Great Britain, nor are they sovereign states. Under feudal precepts the queen bears the ultimate responsibility for the defence of the islands, which responsibility is of course borne by the UK government.
The Channel Islands are not members or associate members of the European Union but have a special relationship set out in Protocol 3 to the Treaty of Accession.