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(by John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, Irish Times)

The UK government had to perform a difficult balancing act with its recent policing proposals.

Its primary task was to give enough to Sinn Féin to persuade it to join the Policing Board. Without its participation, there can be no fully legitimate or representative police service. To get Sinn Féin on ‘board’ required the government to make changes sought by republicans but consistent with the Patten report. Without these desiderata, Sinn Féin will not endorse the police, will have troubles within its ranks, and face tremendous loss of face.

On the other hand the UK government had to be careful not to give too much to Sinn Féin. That would have risked undermining both the SDLP and the UUP. The SDLP joined the Board last year. If Sinn Féin was given extensive concessions now, it would rightly say the SDLP jumped too soon, and swing voters would listen.

London, as always, had concerns about ‘pro-Agreement’ unionists, publicly opposed to the implementation of Patten. The UUP is presently mandated to withdraw from the Board if further concessions are made to republicans.

These apparently irreconcilable tasks produced pessimism about progress on policing.

But the UK government has now revealed its hand. Is it a winning one?

The SDLP can and has claimed vindication for its position that engagement did not preclude, and may have facilitated, further reforms. The measures announced on Monday are largely those agreed with the SDLP at Weston Park.

But Sinn Féin can also argue that its decision to stay off the Board has produced results. For the government is now committed to allowing ex-prisoners to become appointed members of local policing partnerships and to strengthen the powers of Belfast’s four sub-partnerships, conditional on paramilitary ‘acts of completion’. Sinn Féin and the IRA will note that London’s conditionality of these police reforms does not demand the prior implementation of such ‘acts’.

The UK government has also returned to the Patten Report by making community policing a core principle. Police officers will have to carry out their functions with the aim of ‘securing the support of the local community’ and in ‘co-operation’ with that community. This will give teeth to the local partnerships.

Unionists, of course, are not likely to be enthusiastic about the government implementing Patten. However, they have swallowed a lot already. Ex-prisoners can sit on the more powerful Policing Board, on the Executive, and as elected members on the local partnerships. The UK government is insisting, moreover, that ex-prisoners cannot sit as appointed members until five years after being released, that they will have to pledge a commitment to non-violence and that they can be removed if they renege.

Most importantly, London is requiring that ex-prisoners can sit only if the IRA effectively ceases to be. The UK government’s full conversion to Patten is more likely to bring this about than unionist ultimatums. In such a changed context, with Sinn Féin on the Policing Board and the IRA disarming, why would the UUP withdraw from the Board? And what would be the objection to sharing power with Sinn Féin?

Not all the fine details of policing are settled yet. Action will be required on the following:

• Previous restrictions on Board inquiries have been removed, but a new one has been inserted that rules out inquiries if these would endanger any individual (surely it is possible to find other ways to protect such individuals?)
• Inquiries can also be vetoed if they touch on a ‘sensitive personnel’ matter. These restrictions also apply to requests from the Ombudsman for information that would assist her with investigations. These loopholes should be closed.
• The PSNI must effectively target loyalists currently engaged in armed attacks on nationalists. It must also deal with the threat from republican dissidents.
• The problem of Special Branch will have to be tackled, as recommended in the Crompton Report.
• The government will have to produce an alternative to the use of plastic bullets.

In a final bold step to consolidate the Good Friday Agreement, the UK government should declare that it will devolve authority over policing after the next Assembly elections.

John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary co-authored Policing Northern Ireland: Proposals for a New Start (1999), that was influential with the Patten commissioners. They are professors of political science at Queen’s University, Canada, and the University of Pennsylvania, USA, respectively.

This article appeared in the December 5, 2002 edition of the Irish Times.

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