Current Issues - 2006

February 2006

A Good Decision - PoliceBeat Editorial

Sometimes Governments do the right thing even if for the wrong reason.Such was the case with the announcement to scrap the unpalatable on the run legislation that would have granted amnesty to fugitives from justice for terrorist crimes committed within the United Kingdom.

The legislation was to be the fulfilment of a promise to Sinn Fein at Weston Park in 2001.It was a shoddy commitment,morally bankrupt and above all insensitive to the feelings of victims' families and their need for justice.

In announcing their decision to abandon the proposal the Secretary of State Peter Hain pointed to the illogicality of passing legislation which Sinn Fein asserted the OTRs would not avail of because it also afforded amnesty to members of the police service and the security forces. If anything was illogical it was Sinn Fein ’s hypocritical stance.The Prime Minister ’s and the Secretary of State ’s diminishing enthusiasm to pursue the issue was also greatly influenced by the devastating emotional impact of the widows and parents of murdered RUC officers who spoke to them with great dignity and courage in Downing Street. In the teeth of such universal opposition the Government must have welcomed the opportunity to take Sinn Fein at their word that they no longer wanted the legislation unless on their terms.

Peter Hain has commented that Northern Ireland is not ready for this legislation.He should understand that Northern Ireland and certainly the wider police family of serving and past officers and the families of officers murdered or maimed represented by the Federation will not be ready for the foreseeable future to countenance legislation which allows terrorists to access a future without their substantial acknowledgement of guilt for past atrocities.

Nor should the Secretary of State be beguiled into proposing some variant of a truth and reconciliation commission as a guarantee of closure.The families of victims do have a story to tell but there is little prospect of the perpetrators of atrocities coming forward.Those who have already been released under the Good Friday Agreement have no incentive to declare more and those whose crimes remain un-attributed will hope to stay undiscovered.Northern Ireland is too small a community for individual suspicions about who committed what to whom to be officially confirmed.

The Secretary of State is right:more time is needed,perhaps decades.In the meantime he should put away the proposals for OTRs and TRCs deep into his bottom drawer.