Devolving Justice
I took part in a conference on the devolution of justice at the Stormont hotel today. I wasn't in time to see the Attorney General Baroness Scotland tell delegates that transferring justice would be "the final piece in the devolution jigsaw" and "a clear expression of self confidence". But I did chair a debate amongst other interested parties about when the transfer might occur and how a devolved justice system should be structured.
With Jeffrey Donaldson's Stormont committee still deliberating and separate contacts between the DUP and Sinn Fein continuing, no-one is yet in a position to forecast with any accuracy exactly when the devolution of justice might be achieved. The key determinant will be the mood within the DUP. Just as republicans were unwilling to bite off participation in Stormont, decommissioning and accepting the police in one big mouthful, so the DUP is looking for time for its grassroots to digest the new realities.
One contribution I found fascinating came from the Scottish Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, who is Scotland's Chief Legal Officer and Public Prosecutor. She says that she can be cross questioned by Scottish committees not just about general legal policy matters but also about her decisions on individual cases. She sometimes declines to answer on public interest grounds, and she obviously doesn't comment on live cases, but if she thinks she can she will offer explanations for her decisions.
If Assembly scrutiny goes that far here after devolution it will certainly be a change from the era of a distant judiciary refusing to comment on why a certain case was stopped, or why a particular sentence might have been handed down.
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If devolution of justice prevents the local courts from making decisions such as releasing Patrick Mongan and Rua O'Hara on bail, it is a good thing.
The former was accused of attempted murder, posessing a firearm with intent, arson, agravated burglary and hijacking after a machete attack on two tourists and an attack on a man in Belfast.
Mr. O'Hara was accused of rape after an attack on an American student.
In both cases the judges saw fit to let them loose and didn't have to explain themselves to anyone.
However, we are dealing with a legal system here. Sinn Fein used to harp on about the British justice system and how the poor lambs in the IRA were so hard done by, but they were missing the point.
Our legal system is not a justice system. No legal system is. The problem is not that it is/was run by the British, the problem is that it is run by lawyers.
Devolution will not change that, so Sinn Fein shouldn't have too high expectations, and neither should the rest of us.
Another point: the way Sinn Fein handled the Paul Quinn murder was never going to increase DUP enthusiasm for putting Gerry Kelly in charge of it all.
Once again, they missed the point. While there may be a case for saying, "if Paul Quinn wasn't a criminal I'm the Queen of Sheba", that's not the point. The point is that he was brutally murdered.
We just can't have that sort of thing going on, and for Conor Murphy to try to explain the actions of the murderers and - incredibly - categorically deny the involvement of anybody who shares his political beliefs is out of order.
It must be unequivocal: there is only one way to deal with crime. Police and courts. They are far from perfect and always will be, but it is a better system than anything republicans have ever put into practice.
It is also better than the current PUP initiative of light beatings followed by public humiliation (imagine if it had happened in Ballymurphy). If Dawn Purvis had been at St. Andrews she would probably have asked Tony Blair to legalise the stocks and change the date back to 1500.
Your conclusion seems to confuse the role of the Lord Advocate (a law officer) and that of the judiciary. Devolution may indeed see the local AG answering questions in the Assembly but no one is suggesting that judges do the same. Indeed the very suggestion shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of judicial independence.