Damian O'Loan (Paris): The situation in Stormont may now merit the term crisis. A prominent Sinn Fein representative in the South of Ireland, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, has threatened collapse of the Assembly if policing and justice are not devolved: “we will have no option but to pull out our ministers.” Jeffrey Donaldson MP, MLA, Privy Council member and possible Justice Minister, has called for clarification of the threat: “Do they want to stay in the executive? If they do, let's meet and address these issues."
Both sides claim the other refuses to talk; it is widely held that Sinn Fein are blocking the passage of other Ministerial business until their key electoral promises have been resolved – or as Peter Robinson has it: “Adams seems to think that it is the role of everyone to move to his position.” The other parties are unforgiving, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan saying “The soundings coming from Sinn Féin at the minute are more ludicrous than ominous.” Moderate unionism's leader Sir Reg Empey warned “This sort of behaviour cannot continue for much longer.”
This news accompanies a report in the Guardian announcing that up to 300 convicted Republicans are to seek appeal following the case of Danny Morrison, Sinn Fein's former Director of Publicity, convicted for false imprisonment, The argument is that convictions “were secured through tampered evidence and confessions extracted under torture and duress.“ Morrison's case has been, in an extremely favourable decision, referred to the Court of Appeal, and the ex-prisoners cite frustrations in employment, freedom of movement and and prejudiced historical enquiries as factors contributing to their decision.
The case is perhaps designed to strengthen Sinn Fein's claim to competency in a policing and justice department. Or at least the alternative's incompetency. The public outcry that is now following these self-accepted political prisoners of war's pleas of innocence does not detract from the judicial principles at stake. The appeals will have to consider if the convictions are sound, based on long-established principles.
These principles are extremely relevant in the week after Mr Justice Lloyd Jones stated that “"the relationship of the United Kingdom government to the United States authorities in connection with [Mohamed] was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing” - that alleged wrongdoing including MI5 questioning when a lawyer had been denied Binyam Mohamed, MI5 provision of information and questions during six years of allegedly US-dictated detention in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco and Guantanamo and repeated torture including scalpel-incisions to the penis.
That judgement, also discussed by Tom Griffin, points towards a refusal of the claim to immunity by the Foreign Secretary regarding provision of related documentation for the potential military trial, due to “strong reasons of national security, to which the court accepted we were entitled.” The judge cited cases emanating from Northern Ireland which helped establish the relative jurisprudence. The outworking is yet to be agreed, but this may have persuaded the ex-prisoners that any information relating to their allegations would be discoverable. They may be wrong if four decades of British involvement in torture and duress are what the group are seeking to prove. But it does raise the issue of the shared guilt that is the Northern Irish situation.
Because Sinn Fein misrepresented the St Andrew's deal as saying that policing and justice devolution had been committed to, the DUP can now put forward its own interpretation, that the department will be delivered only when unionism is confident. But everyone, thereby, must accept British administration of justice, if less so policing, until unionism assents. Thus the population are being held accountable to a Sinn Féin negotiating error, having bought a mis-labelled settlement. The DUP are not only responsible to unionism and their own electorate, but to “work to put the interests of the people of Northern Ireland first,” as Robinson had it.
That part of the community which suffered most under British justice is now faced with unionist dominance and intransigence in Stormont, and represented by two parties working against each other, even on such sensitive terrain. Were Sinn Fein to collapse the Assembly, it would only further undermine unionist confidence in an already fragile arrangement. The urgent demand that dissident republicanism be discredited and dissolved requires movement from all parties.
In the meantime the losers are mainly from the nationalist community, which has been moving away from its historic antipathy to the police in the expectation that there would soon be local democratic accountability. If that prospect recedes, the resulting loss of confidence will be a factor for instability with social and economic consequences for all.
