Clause 66 - Display of Royal Arms at courts
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
4:30 pm
I beg to move amendment No. 275, in page 57, line 31, leave out from 'after' to end of line 32 and insert '30 March 2000'.
The amendment is an attempt to get to grips with the time scale in which the provision may operate. In one of last week's sittings the Minister made it quite clear, in response to a question from me, that it was envisaged that some central provisions of the Bill would be in operation before devolution. We were left in no doubt about that. A question therefore arises. When will the recommendations based on the review body's opinions, and set out in the Bill, be carried out? We need to be precise about when clause 66 will come into operation.
It is remarkable that, in the Northern Ireland context, the matters of great substance that have been dealt with in the past two and a half weeks have not grabbed the imagination, but the business of symbols is all that is required for interest to arise with great alacrity. It is an old road that we travel. We have travelled it before with other legislation, and we shall travel it again when the Bill is implemented and when the criminal justice measures become operative in their totality. I agree with the Minister that even after the initial elements of the Bill are established—those relating to such crucial matters as the district policing partnership and its role it will be a considerable time before devolution takes place.
For that reason, some provisions of the Bill will be in force while other substantive provisions are not yet operative. The changes in the use of symbols will be dependent on a day, and I suppose that there is a choice of three possible dates: the date on which the recommendations of the review body became public; the date or dates when recommendations and some provisions of the Bill become operative; or the date on which devolution takes place. We can take our pick of those, but the question needs to be cleared up. It is and will be a matter of deep and genuine concern in the north of Ireland—symbols always are. The amendment takes probably the most sensible approach in that the new process would start without undue delay. It is the most public manifestation of the new dispensation in relation to the process of justice.
I have discussed the matter with many people, including Unionists, nationalists, and those of no ideology—as if that ever were the case in the north of Ireland—and I regard the views that I have heard as genuine and sincere. However, the subject poses a
fundamental question, touched on last week by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), which will not be answered until certain questions are asked. What is the Government's attitude towards Northern Ireland? Is it a last residue of colonialism? That was the question posed by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. Has there been a fundamental change based on the Good Friday agreement? Let us not forget that the criminal justice review stemmed from the Good Friday agreement. Is Northern Ireland some sort of strange, semi-detached place, detached from anything and everything, in limbo and without a place of rest until these questions are eventually decided?
I shall not make any pejorative judgment on those three alternatives, but the sooner that the recommendations of the criminal justice review body are seen to be implemented, the better chance there will be to deliver all the legislation. It may be possible for the Government to put in place certain parts of it, but it is worth reminding people that this is not just a decision for the British Government because unless the devolved Administration decide, jointly and equally, that they will take on responsibility for justice, that will not happen. Hence, Northern Ireland could, and probably will, be in no man's land for some time. Do we want that no man's land to persist in relation to symbols, which will be a running sore? No one wants that.