{"id":2937,"date":"2014-07-10T06:45:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T06:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/?p=2937"},"modified":"2017-08-01T10:57:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T10:57:22","slug":"dancia-penn-obe-qc-standards-in-public-life-should-be-adhered-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/2014\/07\/10\/dancia-penn-obe-qc-standards-in-public-life-should-be-adhered-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancia Penn OBE, QC: &#8220;STANDARDS IN PUBLIC LIFE SHOULD BE ADHERED TO&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=&#8221;2\/3&#8243;][vc_column_text]Distinguished Jurist in the British Virgin Islands, Mrs Dancia Penn, OBE, QC, has made the point that standards in public life for politicians and other persons, serving in other leadership positions, should be set and adhered to.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=&#8221;1\/3&#8243;][vc_single_image image=&#8221;2938&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; add_caption=&#8221;yes&#8221; alignment=&#8221;center&#8221; css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1500965053499{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}&#8221;][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]She was at time speaking at a public debate, organised by the Anguilla Bar Association, on the topic: \u201cSelf Governance \u2013 Is this a Solution or a Problem for small states like Anguilla?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStandards in public should be known. They should exist and be adhered to by all and, in particular, those who hold public office \u2013 whether elected or appointed,\u201d she stressed. \u201cThere should be a Register of Interests because corruption should not at all come into play. There should be zero tolerance for it, as well as for conflicts of interests on the part of public officers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Penn continued: \u201cIn this regard, I have observed that section 60 (a) of the Anguilla Constitution requires the Speaker to maintain a Register of Interests including the assets, interests, income and liabilities of a member or any other person connected with the minister as the case may be. I don\u2019t know what happens in practice here because I know a lot is written and is not actually given life; but what I can tell you is that our arrangements in the Virgin Islands are slightly different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our new constitution (Section 112), there is a creation of a Register of Interests and the constitution says that a Registrar of Interests should be appointed. The person is appointed by the Governor and serves at the Governor\u2019s discretion. That person is supposed to keep and maintain a register of all persons to whom the constitution applies; and, so far, the application is only to members of the House of Assembly. I can tell you that when I was a member of the House of Assembly, which was up to November 2011, every six months we were required \u2013 and we got a reminder\u2026to declare our assets. To my knowledge, we have complied with that. There has been a complaint that it is not open to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ask us all to ponder the consequences in our beautiful small islands as it is a very important thing. As a minister of government, and as a member of the cabinet, one has an obligation\u2026 to disclose your interests to the Governor.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=&#8221;2\/3&#8243;][vc_column_text]Distinguished Jurist in the British Virgin Islands, Mrs Dancia Penn, OBE, QC, has made the point that standards in public life for politicians and other<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anguillabar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}