CAJ works to ensure that all members of the community in Northern Ireland enjoy the highest standards of criminal justice, consistent with the guarantees enshrined in United Nations and European human rights conventions.

For many years however, the use of emergency laws in Northern Ireland has clearly served to undermine internationally accepted standards of justice.

Particular human rights problems which we have campaigned against are:

• the disproportionate use of emergency laws and powers;
• suspected state and police collusion;
• extensive breaches of due process at the stages of arrest, detention and trial;
• unequal treatment before the law;
• the intimidation of defence counsel;
• failure to prosecute in a number of high profile cases.

Much of our current work involves activities such as:

• scrutinising and monitoring the operation of the criminal justice system;
• lobbying for changes in the laws and overseeing the passage of legislation;
• conducting research and publishing reports;
• making legal challenges and interventions;
• and engaging in dialogue with the government and other key policy-makers/stakeholders in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.

Since 1998 we have been heavily involved in monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, particularly with regard to policing and criminal justice reforms as well as equality and human rights provisions. These processes of reform have now been underway for several years and CAJ has monitored their progress closely. Criminal justice reform has developed particularly slowly, having been overshadowed by the more wide ranging reforms to the policing system and the international and independent character of the latter.

In recognition of the troubled history of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland, the Peace Agreement, reached by Northern Ireland's political parties on Good Friday 1998, gave special importance to the need for police and criminal justice reforms and dedicated a chapter entirely to the subject.

Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, a government-led Criminal Justice Review Group was established to assess the need for reforms across the criminal justice system, other than in those areas relating to policing and the use of emergency laws. In March 2000, the Review published its final report containing 294 recommendations for reform
Report of the Criminal Justice Review (3.47MB!)  
Summary Of Recommendations (205kb)

This was followed by two Government Implementation Plans
Criminal Justice Review Implementation Plan November 2001 (943KB) and
Criminal Justice Updated Implementation Plan 2003 (979 KB)  
and a Justice (NI) Act of 2002.
A new Justice (NI) Bill 2004 is currently proceeding through the legislative process and will amend certain sections of the Justice Act 2002.

Some of the more significant and far-reaching of the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Review were:

• new procedures for all judicial appointments including the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission for Northern Ireland
• the creation of a new, independent Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland
• measures to promote a representative workforce in all parts of the criminal justice system
• proposals aimed at placing human rights at the centre of all criminal justice service policies
• and reform to aspects of youth justice.

which can be accessed here (56.5 kb)

Unfortunately implementation of the Review has been slow and has been impeded by resistance to change (a lack of political and institutional will), an alleged lack of financial resources and the collapse of devolved government in Northern Ireland. These problems were clear from the lack of detail in the Criminal Justice Review Implementation Plan, November 2001, on how and when the Government and the relevant criminal justice agencies would go about implementing the Review. This Plan has since been supplemented in June 2003 by an Updated Implementation Plan. For a detailed examination of each Plan see CAJ's submissions:

• Commentary on the Implementation Plan, January 2002
• Commentary on the Updated Implementation Plan, September 2003

See:

• CAJ Response to the Justice Act 2002
• Just News Article on the Justice (NI) Bill 2004 (see pages 4/5)
• Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly (NILQ) article: "For a general overview of the implementation process since the publication of the Review";
  Vol. 54, No. 4; Winter 2003

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the use of emergency laws was expressly precluded from the remit of the Criminal Justice Review. In view of the fact that the unregulated use of emergency laws has, over the years, led to infringements of civil liberties and grave human rights violations, this seriously reduced the capacity of the Review to promote public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. CAJ continues to monitor the use of emergency laws and to push for their abolition. While the government has shown little willingness to substantially alter the Terrorism Act (and indeed, has recently promised to increase the powers under the Act, by reversing the burden of proof etc.), we have continued to argue that it be repealed or at least significantly changed so that the aspects of it which apply only to Northern Ireland are deleted. International developments since "9/11" have meant that our experience of emergency legislation in Northern Ireland has been the focus of increased interest. Many are interested in learning from the Northern Ireland situation and CAJ is keen to use any opportunity to emphasise the risks created by draconian responses which feed and fuel, rather than effectively address, the causes of conflict.

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