Devolving Justice
I took part in a conference on the devolution of justice at the Stormont hotel today. I wasn't in time to see the Attorney General Baroness Scotland tell delegates that transferring justice would be "the final piece in the devolution jigsaw" and "a clear expression of self confidence". But I did chair a debate amongst other interested parties about when the transfer might occur and how a devolved justice system should be structured.
With Jeffrey Donaldson's Stormont committee still deliberating and separate contacts between the DUP and Sinn Fein continuing, no-one is yet in a position to forecast with any accuracy exactly when the devolution of justice might be achieved. The key determinant will be the mood within the DUP. Just as republicans were unwilling to bite off participation in Stormont, decommissioning and accepting the police in one big mouthful, so the DUP is looking for time for its grassroots to digest the new realities.
One contribution I found fascinating came from the Scottish Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, who is Scotland's Chief Legal Officer and Public Prosecutor. She says that she can be cross questioned by Scottish committees not just about general legal policy matters but also about her decisions on individual cases. She sometimes declines to answer on public interest grounds, and she obviously doesn't comment on live cases, but if she thinks she can she will offer explanations for her decisions.
If Assembly scrutiny goes that far here after devolution it will certainly be a change from the era of a distant judiciary refusing to comment on why a certain case was stopped, or why a particular sentence might have been handed down.
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