Much hype in recent days about devolving justice to a department of justice at Stormont. As if there was something new about the idea. In paragraph seven of the Policing and Justice section in the Good Friday Agreement it states that 'the British government...remains ready to devolve responsibility for policing and justice issues.'
Annex B to that section the agreement is more explicit. The Criminal Justice Review will cover such issues as: 'the structure and organisation of criminal justice functions that might be devolved to an assembly, including the possibility of establishing a Department of Justice'.
Two points on these matters. First, the agreement states that the review of criminal justice will report to the secretary of state 'no later than autumn 1999'. It was completed a bit later, but let's overlook that. The report was then published for consultation. The period of consultation was then extended for six months, then some more. It's true the awful Mandelson was proconsul for some of that time and therefore, like every other aspect of the agreement he touched, it became enmeshed in his wheeling and dealing as he tried to play both sides against the middle and dropped all the pieces on the floor.
It wasn't just Mandelson, though he does bear a heavy responsibility for sabotaging policing and justice reforms. The fate of the criminal justice review is also a good example of what has gone wrong with the implementation of the GFA. Everywhere it has been slow, minimalist, grudging, conservative, lacking in good will. For once, it's not solely a matter of NIO skulduggery. Various departments in the Irish government have also done their utmost to stymie some outworkings of the Agreement. It was only last week Dublin announced E3 million for victims of the troubles, years after the British administration here allocated funds for victims. Dublin has done its best to ensure the human rights aspects of the agreement won't work. The government dragged its feet, made a mess of appointing personnel to the Human Rights Commission, withheld powers, underfunded the process.
The NIO did exactly the same, withholding money and resources to render the north's Human Rights Commission nugatory. They needn't have bothered. The commission has been a failure in its own right, its impotence confirmed with the resignation of the iconic human rights figure Inez McCormack last year.
Partly the reason for these failures in both jurisdictions has been civil servants hanging onto their own little empires, resisting change in a way which would make a unionist glow with pride. Partly it has been concern in Dublin and London about the impact radical reforms here might have on practice in Britain and the Republic. Partly it has been the poor performance of SF and the SDLP who have stood by and watched it all happen, for example allowing Ronnie Flanagan to oversee the appointment of virtually all the district commanders of what was to be the PSNI before his departure last year.
What's the second point? Well, a department of justice, if it ever gets off the ground, will look as if it's a great leap forward. Well, up to a point Lord Copper. Its purview will extend only to local, provincial mickey mouse 'justice'. Do you think the British administration will allow some local politician to have any oversight of the role of MI5 or military intelligence in the north? We're going to be stuck with the position where locally recruited and controlled PC Ulster Plod will be subject to the most rigorous inspection and accountability, yet spooky people in or out of uniform sent over from Britain can still bug and burgle, even kill someone here and get off scot free as they have always done in the past.
Will a local justice minister have access to secret intelligence files about the north currently stored at Hayes Middlesex, but soon to be privatised to the Australian company TNT and the US owned Prologis Development? Nope. The Home Office and defence department will keep their secrets away from mere Irish politicians.
The image that comes to mind is from the Yom Kippur war of 1973. As the Israeli and Egyptian armies and air forces got stuck into each other, the US spy plane the Blackbird SR-71, flew over the whole scene at 60,000 feet photographing and eavesdropping as the children played below, oblivious as big brother checked to ensure the Israelis were doing OK.
If there's ever a justice department jointly controlled by nationalist and unionist ministers you can be certain they will only be allowed some of the toys to play with as big brother watches and listens to make sure things are going to plan.
