Sir William Bailhache to retire from role as Jersey's Bailiff

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Jersey
Tuesday 11 September 2018 at 3:01pm

Credit: ITV Channel TV

The Bailiff, Sir William Bailhache, is set to retire from office on 12 October 2019, it was announced in the States today.

The announcement was made by the Deputy Bailiff, Timothy Le Cocq, and included the following statement from the Bailiff, who is off-island.

I apologise that I cannot be with you personally to deliver this message in the States. However, I wanted States Members to be amongst the first to know that Her Majesty The Queen has approved my request to be permitted to retire from the office of Bailiff on 12th October 2019. By then I shall have completed nearly five years as Bailiff and some 20 years of public service. This is a time which is right for me and for my family and with what is now a new Assembly having been in place for 15 months, it seems as good a time as any to make way for a successor. There will be plenty of opportunities for goodbye messages nearer the time as I have more than 12 months left in office, all being well. I should like to take the opportunity to say that, like my predecessors, I have tried to be useful in the role as presiding officer in this Assembly, a role which is not always straightforward, and sometimes positively challenging but it has been stimulating and notwithstanding the debate about the role of the Bailiff in the Assembly, I have always appreciated that members have approached that subject without personal rancour.

Sir William took up his appointment as Bailiff in January 2015.

Over his career, Sir William has served as Attorney General for Jersey and as Deputy Bailiff.

He was educated at St Michael's Preparatory School in Jersey and Chaterhouse in Surrey before attending Merton College at Oxford University.