It must be stressed that what follows can only be Meral guidance. It must (and does) always remain the responsibility of the individual Member to declare an interest in any situation where it might appear to a dispassionate outside observer that his advice might not seem to be impartial, because of an apparent conflict between his personal, family, business or other interests-ör duties, whether direct or indirect, pecuniary or otherwise (or those of partners or colleagues), and the duty to give impartial. advice to the Governor in Council.)
9
Exclusionary Interests
In general, it may be felt that any significant personal pecuniary, interest at all should lead to withdrawal; under Legislative Council Standing Order 65 such interests only need disclosure but the proceedings in Legislative Council are public so that the part played by the financially interested Member is apparent to the public. Similarly it may be felt that
any other substantial interests personal to the Member should lead to withdrawal.
ΤΟ
The following might be adopted as guidelines of those interests which entail withdrawal:
(2)
Significant personal pecuniary interests (whether as owner, trustee, beneficiary, nominee, shareholder, etc) which may be materially affected by the decision upon an item to be discussed, whether directly (e.g. issue of a licence or franchise) or indirectly (e.g. issue of a licence to a close competitor);
(b). Similar interest held by a close relative. Members must themselves judge whom in the particular circumstances is a close relative". "Closeness" involves not only proximity (brother; cousin, etc) but also the intimacy of the personal relationship. Thus whilst parents, children, siblings, and their spouses, even if the relationship is not warm, would always be considered by the public to be "close relatives", more distant relatives might nevertheless be "close" if the relationship were very intimate.
(c)
Similarly some friendships might be so close as to fall within the spirit of the above principle, namely to avoid situations where sensible outsiders would consider the Member's advice to have been likely to have been influenced by the closeness of the association.
G.S. 84