 The Chief Pleas will have to reconsider the reform plans |
Members of Sark's governing body are to have an unofficial meeting with the UK Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) about the island's constitution. Sark needs to reform its government, the Chief Pleas, in order to comply with European human rights laws.
The focus of the dispute is whether landowners should be automatically reserved seats in the Chief Pleas.
Any plan drawn up must be acceptable to the DCA and the UK Privy Council for it to receive Royal assent and become law.
Historic role
A range of options will be discussed by the Chief Pleas at an official meeting next month.
Sark is Europe's last feudal state. Its current system of government is made up of deputies elected by the people and tenants who choose representatives from among their number to sit in Chief Pleas.
Owners of the island's 40 tenements (divisions of land) have an automatic seat in government. Islanders choose 12 people's deputies.
A compromise featuring elected officials and a government retaining some of the historic role of landowners was agreed in March.
But it is thought it could be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights for not being democratic enough.
The Chief Pleas' Seigneur, Michael Beaumont, has previously warned that retaining the landowners' seats may well be deemed inadmissible by the Crown.
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