De Vic Carey - Hg62

Bailiff of Guernsey
1999 - 2005

b. 1940

m. Bridget Lindsay Smith

HOME OFFICE ANNOUNCEMENT 055/99

15 February 1999

GUERNSEY: CROWN APPOINTMENTS

The Queen, on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, has been pleased to approve the appointment of Mr de Vic Carey, at present Deputy Bailiff of Guernsey, as Bailiff of Guernsey in succession to Sir Graham Dorey, who retires from the post on 28 March 1999.

The Queen, on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, has also been pleased to approve the appointment Mr Andrew Christopher King Day, at present Her Majesty's Procureur of Guernsey, as Deputy Bailiff of Guernsey and Mr Geoffrey Robert Rowland, at present Solicitor General of Guernsey, as Procureur of Guernsey. 

14th June 2005:

Mr de Vic Carey officially stepped down after six years and said the position had allowed him to experience many things.

‘One of my proudest moments was opening the Island Games. I was very honoured to do that,’ he said. ‘Sitting with Her Majesty at the dinner during her 2001 visit and finding that she was so young at heart and had a wonderful sense of humour was also a highlight. It was also an honour to open the new airport terminal, particularly because in my youth I used to fly a Cessna 172.’

Sir de Vic said his job had allowed him to see at first hand the bountiful nature of Guernsey people through his charity work and the establishment of his own disaster appeal fund.

‘I have been very pleased to facilitate various appeals to disasters, though I can take no credit for the generous nature of Guernsey people – but I have been pleased to encourage it,’ he said. ‘It makes me very proud as a Guernseyman and the generosity of Guernsey people never ceases to amaze me.’

The Bailiff is patron of several charities and Sir de Vic hopes to remain involved with some of them.

‘I have been involved with appeals such as the Gosh Home from Home and Raise the Roof. It is amazing how people will give to those causes and Guernsey people and businesses are very generous. If it were not for that generosity, we would be a much poorer community in all respects.’

Sir de Vic is anxious to emphasise that many of the public duties he has undertaken have been, for him, icing on the cake. The job of Bailiff was all about being a competent and effective judge in an increasingly complex, rights-driven society.

During his career as HM Comptroller and HM Procureur, Sir de Vic was involved in shaping the island’s laws. His own role has changed in the six years he has been head of the island’s judiciary and presiding over its parliament. Although the Bailiff still gets involved in representing the island in a non-political role, the government is now, following the changes to the machinery of government, represented politically both inside and outside the island by the Chief Minister and his ministerial colleagues on the Policy Council.

‘The Bailiff remains the civic head and leader of the community as the senior appointment after that of the Lt-Governor. The Bailiff is asked to involve himself in a large part of the island’s social, sporting and cultural life and to support and encourage the myriad youth and other organisations which are so well served by the voluntary sector.’

As he anticipates a more gentle pace of life, Sir de Vic said he was looking forward to having more free time.

‘I haven’t been on a civil service pre-retirement course – I haven’t had time. I haven’t given much thought to what I will do.

‘Both my wife and I love travelling and hope to be able to do a lot of it. We have a house in France and family in South Africa and we have a garden to which I have not been able to give much time – my wife has looked after it all. But I will not be taking up lots of new hobbies.’