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MAY 2002
INTERNATIONAL JUDGE APPOINTED
The British and Irish governments have now appointed the
Honourable Peter de Carteret Cory, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of
Canada, to decide whether there should be public inquiries into the murders of
Patrick Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill, Billy Wright, Lord Justice and
Lady Gibson and RUC officers Harry Breen
and Bob Buchanan. BIRW will be
making detailed submissions to him concerning the four cases – Finucane,
Hamill, Nelson and Wright – on which we have worked for the past number of
years. All four families are
seeking full public inquiries, and refuse to accept this exercise as being in
any sense a substitute for such inquiries, but are hoping to persuade Judge Cory
of the merits of their cases. This
month the Law Society for England and Wales has called for a public inquiry into
the murder of Rosemary Nelson and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission
has done so in the case of Billy Wright. We
welcome their support.
rosemary nelson and robert hamill
On 8th May Fiona Murphy of BIRW addressed a well-attended meeting in the House of Commons organised by the Robert Hamill Campaign, at which she spoke about the murder of the Hamill family’s lawyer, Rosemary Nelson. The meeting took place on the fifth anniversary of Robert Hamill’s death. He died some twelve days after being set upon by a loyalist mob while armed RUC officers sat by in a police vehicle and did nothing to intervene.
psni
transparency policy
We have sent the Police Service of Northern Ireland detailed comments on their draft transparency policy. While welcoming their adoption of such a policy, we have pointed out that transparency in itself is neutral. It is possible to be transparently oppressive, or transparently aggressive, and bad policing is frequently both. A commitment to transparency, then, is only as good as the reasons behind it. We have suggested that the principle that ought to underlie transparency in any public body is accountability. In this regard, we perceive two stumbling blocks to transparency in policing. The first lies in the right of the Chief Constable to appeal to the Secretary of State against a decision by the Policing Board to initiate an inquiry following a report by the Chief Constable under s. 60 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. The second is the history of Special Branch supremacy within the police service and the subordination of traditional policing to the demands of intelligence gathering. If the transformation of policing in Northern Ireland is to have any reality, the PSNI will have to undergo a radical reappraisal of its attitude towards collusion. It will have to recognise that collusion has happened, and that, like racism in other police services, it has been institutionalised. It will have to put in place measures to root out collusion and to prevent its recurrence. We have offered to enter into serious dialogue with the PSNI about collusion.
psni equality scheme
We have also commented on the PSNI’s draft scheme for
promoting equality of opportunity. We
are very glad that the PSNI has been designated as a public authority for the
purposes of s. 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and that the police service
is clearly responding positively to its obligations under the Act.
Equality is very much a live issue for the PSNI, given its history and
the fact that it is currently severely imbalanced in relation to at least two
groups, both of them sizeable: Catholics and women.
We do not know what percentage of the PSNI is made up of people with
disabilities, gays, or ethnic minorities, but suspect that, in common with many
other public bodies, they too are under-represented.
We think it would be helpful if the draft scheme acknowledged these
imbalances. In the absence of any
mention of them, it has a slightly unreal air.
If the PSNI is truly committed to promoting equality of opportunity then,
rather than presenting the PSNI as a brand new butterfly emerging from the
chrysalis of the RUC, it needs to acknowledge that it has quite a distance to
travel before it achieves its aim.
POLICING BOARD CODE OF PRACTICE ON DISTRICT POLICING
PARTNERSHIPS
It has been quite a month for commenting on draft documents to do with policing! We have made a number of comments on the Policing Board’s draft code of practice on District Policing Partnerships. We have urged the Board to view the DPPs in a rather more positive light than the draft code presents; to encourage exchange of information between DPPs so that they can learn from each other’s experiences; and to promote best practice.
bill of rights seminar
On 3rd May we held a seminar jointly with the Department of Law at the University of Leeds about the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights. Grateful thanks to our speakers: Brice Dickson, Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission; Maggie Beirne of the Committee on the Administration of Justice; and Francesca Klug of the London school of Economics; and to the British Institute of Human Rights for their help in providing a venue.
ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE IN THE DIPLOCK COURTS
In
the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland confession evidence is admissible in
cases scheduled under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act unless it
was obtained under torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or violence or
threat of violence, whereas in England under PACE a confession must be excluded
unless it is proved beyond reasonable doubt, upon representations being made,
that it was not obtained by oppression or in consequence of anything liable to
render it unreliable. The Northern
Ireland Office is carrying out a review of whether to apply the PACE standards
in the juryless Diplock courts. Although
we would want to see an end to the Diplock courts altogether, such a reform
would be a welcome step. We are
hopeful that it will be implemented because the Policing Board for Northern
Ireland is supporting such a move.
DEROGATIONS
This month we also made a submission to the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights’ inquiry into United Kingdom derogations from the European Convention on Human Rights. We advocated far more parliamentary scrutiny of any derogations than currently exists, and the bringing into force of a Derogations Act which would lay down:
· the procedures for derogation, including provisions for parliamentary scrutiny of derogations;
· the circumstances in which it is permissible to derogate, which should be strictly defined;
· time limits for the duration of any derogation, which should be short;
· a mechanism for keeping derogations under constant review; and
· provisions for entering reservations, which should also be strictly defined.
welcome and farewell
Farewell to Leanne Pang, whose internship with BIRW as a
graduate human rights student at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has come
to an end. We are glad that we are
not losing her altogether, as she continues to work on our chronology in a
voluntary capacity. We wish her
well in the future and thanks her for her work.
As she leaves, we welcome Danielle Koster of Colombia University in New
York. Danielle is helping us to
create our submissions to Judge Cory.
Jane Winter,
Director,
31st May 2002.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
