Policing and human rights after the conflict
by Brice Dickson
Our model envisages that 370 officer recruits will be taken each year on average...... 185 of these would be Catholic and 185 would be 'Protestant or undetermined' (the present categories used by the RUC)......We believe that the ratio of recruits should be kept to 50:50 at least for ten years of the model. In the event that the level of Catholic application does not initially produce enough qualified candidates........it may be necessary to aggregate the numbers over two or three years.
The Patten Commission was aware that implementation of any such proposal would require an amendment to the fair employment legislation in Northern Ireland. 13, but was advised that it would not be incompatible with European legislation. While this may be true at present, it may not be so for much longer. This is because there are proposals in circulation to add a Protocol 12 to the ECHR, and to issue Directives under Article 13 of the Treaty of Rome (as amended by the Treaty of European Union - the Amsterdam Treaty) to make religious discrimination unlawful. If the model of gender discrimination law is followed - and that is a highly developed model which is the pride and joy of European lawyers - then it is unlikely that the sort of exception which Patten is proposing would pass muster with the European courts. 14. Positive discrimination is not a concept which those court have yet countenanced. 15. Nevertheless, the British government has signalled its intention to implement Patten on this point, albeit on a three year pilot basis. 16.
One further dimension to membership of the new Police Service deserves discussion. Patten recommends that there should be no ban on officers being members of any legal organisation, provided it is clear that the officer's primary and overriding loyalty is to the values of that police service. The Commission adds, however, that all officers should be required to register their interests and associations and that the register should be held both by the police service and by the Police Ombudsman. There is not an explicit proposal that the register be available for public inspection, but it would surely make sense if that were so.
To many this part of the Patten Report will not have gone far enough. In
particular, they will argue that there is a fundamental inconsistency between
simultaneous membership of the Loyal Orders and of the Northern Ireland
Police Service. But such a stance is flawed on two counts. First, it is
attributing to all members of the Loyal Orders the undoubted excesses which
some reprobate members of those Orders have committed. It is suggesting
that mere membership of such groups automatically means that one is unable
to lead a blameless life. Second, it is confusing religious commitment with
professional commitment, implying that if someone holds a religious belief
which is avowedly anti-Catholic he or she will be professionally unable
to police the Catholic population in an impartial way. That is like saying
that a lawyer with such religious beliefs cannot properly represent a person
with different beliefs, or that a teacher, doctor or social worker could
not put his or her personal religious views out of mind when dealing with
others in a professional capacity. To disqualify people from certain positions
because of their religious beliefs is indeed a slippery slope and is a very
difficult stance to defend in international human rights law. The government
has not yet clarified its position regarding this aspect of the Patten Report.
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