The British establishment is, at heart, rather disdainful of demands for justice emanating from this tiresome place.
Peter Hain was full of self-congratulation in Parliament yesterday (Monday) but in truth he has been careless of his responsibilities here and is clearly keen to be shot of them.
The secretary of state didn't deign to give evidence at the recent judicial review of his appointment of the victim's commissioner, merely indicating through lawyers that what he had done was done under Royal Prerogative. So that's that then.
Never mind the Good Friday Agreement with its palaver about equality.
Never mind fair employment legislation to outlaw discrimination.
Never mind ministerial codes of conduct and all that jazz about accountability and transparency.
Hain appointed Bertha McDougall after Ian Paisley sent him her CV and told him she was the one for the job.
He did it to please unionists, knowing nationalists wouldn't be happy and would probably protest about the way he had gone about it.
He did it without consulting Sinn Féin or the SDLP.
There was no requirement to consult, his counsel told the court, because this was an interim appointment.
He did it because he could.
Or thought he could. The appointment was appealed and we await the outcome of a judicial review. Whatever Mr Justice Girvan's decision, the evidence given in court revealed a high- handed indifference to doing things in such a way as to instill public confidence in the way Northern Ireland is being governed. The judge was moved to remark that the head of the Northern Ireland civil service had produced a statement which was "shrouded in careful terminology".
The DUP has been boasting that the St Andrews agreement means that "no significant decisions can be taken without unionist approval", although the agreement, if it proves to be such, actually provides that in this case at least, the approval of unionists alone will not be sufficient – a new law is to ensure that the next victims commissioner will be appointed differently.
Bertha McDougall has, as it turns out, worked well with many victims who didn't expect she would listen to them.
She has won affection from people who have been surprised by her apparent openness to their concerns.
However, her position was seriously undermined by the manner of her appointment.
There are deeper problems anyway in relation to the victims of the conflict, problems which were excluded from the brief of the commissioner.
Provision of services is important but while some stressed and neglected people will welcome access to counselling and neck massages, there are many others with different needs.
People whose relatives were murdered by the security forces, for example, whose questions are being disregarded, even though eminent figures like Sir John Stevens, Judges Cory and Barron and several crown coroners have found evidence to support their concerns.
They cannot find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones because the British authorities simply refuse to disclose the relevant information.
Things are set to get worse when MI5 takes over intelligence gathering on terrorism, separating it from criminality, as if the two are not linked. This is an organisation which acts as if transparency and accountability are contemptible nonsenses. The SDLP has taken a lead in warning us of the dangers in this. Its attempts even to get basic information such as, how many Catholics does MI5 employ, were rebuffed. None of your business, was the answer.
No 50/50 policy here then.
The Police Ombudsman's office will only have power over police officers within MI5.
The human rights lawyer attached to the Policing Board will be similarly restricted in his ability to scrutinise its behaviour. There is no proper complaints procedure. This is the organisation that took eight years to pass on information to the PSNI about the Omagh bomb. Asked by families of some of the Omagh victims for a meeting, the head of MI5 said such a meeting would serve no purpose. Nor can there be any justice for victims while the Public Prosecution Service continues to have the unchallengeable power to decline to prosecute which it enjoys.
This new agreement is to be welcomed if it brings the political parties together, with the DUP accepting Sinn Féin's right to share power and Sinn Féin recognising that parties to government need to support the police force. However, the British government must accept the critical importance of transparency and accountability here. No more private sops. No more dirty secrets.
