The
Patten, the whole Patten, and nothing but the Patten. The Patten proposals
on policing in Northern Ireland have been altered dangerously by Peter Mandelson.
Brendan O'Leary urges him to think again, lest he threaten the who
From IRISH TIMES July 28th, 2000
Yet any honest external appraisal of the modified Bill would report that
it is still not the whole Patten - a fact insufficiently appreciated in
Ireland's media. If the first draft of the Bill eviscerated Patten, the
latest version paints and dresses the mummy. Even at the Commons report
stage the SDLP was treated appallingly - with the British government dropping
its own promised amendments. In consequence, Mr Mallon's relations with
Mandelson are at an all-time low. What needs to be done to resurrect the
real Patten? The following minimum would help, and needs to be strongly
commended by the Government to the British government through the British-Irish
inter-governmental conference. Patten recommended the name of the police
service be entirely new: The Northern Ireland Police Service. The Bill calls
the service "the Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary)". The Secretary of State promised an amendment to define
"for operational purposes" - to ensure that the full title would rarely
be used, and that the parenthetic past generally be excluded. He broke this
commitment at report stage. The House of Lords must restore Patten, either
by time-limiting "incorporating the RUC", or, preferably, by deleting it.
Mandelson's own dropped amendment would also be helpful. Mandelson misleads
when he says Patten wanted the new service to be connected to the old and
to avoid suggestions of disbanding. True, but that was not the whole Patten:
he proposed an entirely new and fresh name, and proposed linkages between
the old and new services through police memorials, not the renaming proposed
by Ken Maginnis of the UUP with Mandelson's approval. Patten also unambiguously
recommended that the new badge and emblems for the service be free of association
with the British or Irish states, and that the Union flag should not fly
from police buildings. The Bill, as amended, fails to do any of this. Mr
Mandelson may not have intended to subvert Patten here, but he has not even
told a half-Patten by way of explanation. Patten recommended that there
should be an Oversight Commissioner to "supervise the implementation of our recommendations". The British government has now put the commissioner on a statutory basis, but confined his role to overseeing changes "decided by the government". If Mr Mandelson was committed to Patten he would charge the commissioner with recommending legislative and other changes necessary for the full implementation of the Patten report, not the emergent Act.
It is essential that the Taoiseach and Mr Cowen press for the Oversight
Commissioner's role to be that envisaged by Patten. That would create the
possibility that the full implementation of Patten could occur later, and
help avert a crisis. Patten recommended a board with the ability to hold
the police to account, and to initiate inquiries into police conduct and
practices. Mr Mandelson has prevented the truth emerging about the police's
past by stopping the board from inquiring into any act or omission arising
before the eventual Act applies. This is an undeclared amnesty for past
police misconduct, and was not proposed by Patten. The Secretary of State
now has the power to prevent inquiries because they "would serve no useful purpose", an addition at the report stage, again not in Patten. He has also given himself powers to order the Chief Constable to take steps in the interests of economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, whereas Patten envisaged this role for the board. Patten recommended the Ombudsman "should exercise the right to investigate and comment on police policies and practices". The
Bill represents a half-Patten: the Ombudsman may make reports but not investigate
(so it is not a crime to obstruct her work). Lastly, Patten recommended
disbanding the full-time reserve, encouraging international standards of
human rights beyond the European Convention, normalising the police through
merging the Special Branch and the CID, and closing a series of interrogation
centres "forthwith". On all this, the Bill and implementation plan are either
ominously silent or unclear. If the Taoiseach obliges Mr Mandelson to address
all these issues, with a little help from the Lords, he will go some way
to avoiding disaster, and restoring faith in the British government's integrity.
If he does not, then a new charge should be brought against Mr Mandelson,
"vexatiously wasting Parliament's time". Two Acts of Parliament addressing
policing in Northern Ireland will have been passed under the Blair government,
and neither will have fulfilled the function of integrating Northern nationalists
into the new political, legal and policing arrangements promised by the
Belfast Agreement. This charge will be in addition to Mr Mandelson's previous
offence of breaking international law by unilaterally suspending the agreement's
institutions - a charge the Irish Government decided not to pursue. Mr Mandelson
was lucky once; he is unlikely to be lucky twice. |
