The story of the political autonomy and judicial independence of both Jersey and Guernsey begins in 1204. In that year King John of England lost the duchy of Normandy (which at that time included the Channel Islands) to the French King Philippe Auguste. King John, seeking to preserve the loyalty of the Islanders to their King/Duke, conferred a number of constitutional privileges. He established separate administrations for each bailiwick and decreed that they would continue to be governed by their own laws, essentially the customary law of Normandy. From that time the legal systems of both Islands have developed from those appropriate for insular agricultural economies to systems adapted to the needs of thriving international financial centres.
From this common root of Norman customary law, therefore, the jurisprudence of the two bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey has developed. The bailiwick of Guernsey includes the two smaller Islands of Alderney and Sark, each of which has its own autonomy in certain respects. It is at first blush extraordinary that in the small area covered by the Channel Islands two distinct judicial systems and two corpora juris (four, if one takes account of the different rules for the smaller islands of Alderney and Sark) should have survived for over 800 years.
The Jersey and Guernsey Law Review exists to promote “the development of the laws of Jersey and Guernsey and the encouragement of interest therein.” It contains articles on a wide variety of subjects that will be of interest beyond the Channel Islands not only to judges and lawyers of other jurisdictions but also to students of comparative law.
The Jersey and Guernsey Law Review has been printed in hard copy since its foundation (as the Jersey Law Review) in 1997. With effect from February 2025 this will change, and the Review’s triannual issues will be published only in electronic format. This is a substantial change, but it is judged to be necessary as the professional world increasingly works only with laptops, tablets and mobile devices. The annual volume of all three issues will, however, continue to be printed in hard copy.
Information on how to subscribe will be found on the page headed “Subscriptions”, which refers potential subscribers to the website of the Institute of Law, Jersey, which will host the Review, and to the subscriptions page at
https://www.lawinstitute.ac.je/jersey-and-guernsey-law-review/. With effect from February 2024, the full text of the Jersey and Guernsey Law Review will be available only to subscribers. Abstracts of the articles will, however, be published on this website of the Jersey Legal Information Board.
Updated February 2025