Implementation Plan for the Criminal Justice Review -
The government recently published its Implementation Plan for the Criminal Justice Review and the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill. The Plan is the governments response to the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Review. The Bill will legislate for those areas which need changes in the law.
From CAJ's Just News, December 2001
By Paul Mageean
The government position not only goes against the recommendations of the Review but it also potentially violates the Human Rights Act. As a result of the ECHR decision in Kelly etal v United Kingdom 4t May 2001) the prosecution service will be obliged to give reasons in cases which involve suspicious or controversial deaths.
Evidently the case with the new proposals for judicial appointments. We believe Northern Ireland should not have to wait for devolution for the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC).
We believe lay membership of the Commission should at least equal legal membership. Otherwise it is very likely that the representatives of the judiciary and the profession will dominate the discussions. This is particularly so given that the chair is going to be the Lord Chief Justice. The Plan ensures that the majority of members of the JAC are judges.
We do not understand why the lay members should be representative of the community in Northern Ireland but the there is no similar obligation in relation to the judicial or legal appointments. At the very least there should be a statutory obligation that the Judicial Appointments Commission as a whole should be representative of society.
When the Plan and Bill were first published the government had given four weeks to respond despite the fact that the NIO Equality Scheme said that the minimum should be eight. In addition to the Plan and the Bill, there was also a four hundred page screening document produced by the NIO and only available on their website and a further screening document from the Northern Ireland Court Service. Allowing four weeks to respond to all of this could hardly be described as meaningful participation. Presumably in recognition of this the government extended the deadline for the consultation period to the 7th January. While welcome, this extension includes the Christmas period. If this is the way consultation is going to work in the area of criminal justice, then the Equality Commission needs to take steps to ensure that the level of real consultation improves.
CAJ will closely monitor the passage of the Bill through Parliament and try to ensure that through it and the Plan, the criminal justice system works for the benefit of all. In order to achieve this however, significant changes need to occur to both documents.
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