Answering a question in the States from Deputy Kevin Pamplin, Matthew Jowitt said presumed liability was a civil-law concept which, in some jurisdictions, holds that where a more vulnerable road user is injured in an incident involving two parties, the less vulnerable party is presumed to be to blame unless they can prove otherwise.
It was, he added, a concept which made it easier for injured parties to sue the other person for damages.
Presumed liability, however, does not exist in Jersey.
‘The short answer is that presumed liability is not part of Jersey law,’ he said, adding that any injured party seeking damages from another would therefore have to prove they were to blame.
The question came just days after a mother, whose 14-year-old son was struck by a vehicle while he was cycling in March last year, launched a petition calling for a review of Jersey’s laws to make it safer to cycle, walk and horse-ride in the Island.
Joanna Dentskevich’s petition has so far been signed by more than 3,200 people. If it reaches 5,000, it will be considered for a debate in the Assembly.
Mrs Dentskevich says that prosecuting authorities told her family that the decision was taken not to charge anybody in relation to the incident involving her son because the driver had claimed that they did not realise they had hit and caused injury to a person and that therefore, in the act of driving away, there was no intention of doing anything unlawful.
Simply driving away, Mrs Dentskevich says she was told, did not in itself constitute a crime and, as there were no witnesses to the collision, it could not be determined whether the driver had been driving carelessly.
Mr Jowitt said presumed liability could not be incorporated into criminal law as it would affect a person’s right to a fair trial and the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
Asked by Deputy Rob Ward if a decision by the States recently to approve his proposal to give cyclists, pedestrians and horse-riders legal priority in green lanes would have any impact on presumed liability in the event of an accident, the Solicitor General said it would not.
