From unsafe workplaces to financial wrongdoing, whistleblowers can play a crucial role in exposing problems, but often at personal risk. Jersey is now moving to introduce a new law to protect those who speak out from retaliation… but those who go to the media alone may still face issues.
If approved when it goes before the States Assembly later in the year, the ‘Protected Disclosure (Protection of Whistleblowers) (Jersey) Law’ put forward by Social Security Minister Lyndsay Feltham would bring Jersey closer to jurisdictions like the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man.
Express took a closer look…
Jersey doesn’t have any protection for whistleblowers currently. If someone wants to report wrongdoing at their workplace, they are left vulnerable to being punished or losing their job as a result.
The proposed law would ban retaliations and unfair treatment of whistleblowers.
The draft legislation sets out what kind of whistleblowing (officially called “making a protected disclosure”) is protected: criminal offences, people not following laws, harming the environment, acts that “cause a risk to the maintenance of law”, or trying to cover up wrongdoing.
These acts can be committed by employees, workers, or anyone “acting on the authority” of the organisation.
Whistleblowers will have to follow a specific process: they have to make a detailed disclosure to one of a list of “receivers”:
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