Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

My Lords, we support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, particularly subsection (2) of the new clause, which provides that community restorative justice schemes should work in partnership with the police and Public Prosecution Service. The problems with the implementation of restorative justice lie in community-based schemes, as the noble Lord so eloquently outlined. Any consideration of the creation or formal recognition of community-based schemes in Northern Ireland must take into account the nature of society there and the continuing role and influence of paramilitaries. Indeed, many of the existing schemes seem to have indirect links to paramilitarism. They employ individuals with terrorist records, as the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, reminded us; they rationalise the role that paramilitaries have in society; and they take referrals from such organisations. The continued and wrongful rejection of the police and criminal justice system in many of those communities must further be noted. It is important to take into account the comments made by the IMC on the value of properly approved CRJ schemes and the abuses that have been associated with current schemes that operate outside any formal state sanction. A recent IMC report highlighted the dangers of community restorative justice schemes operating without proper guidelines or with weak or ineffective guidelines. Over the past few years, it is probably fair to say that the Police Service of Northern Ireland has become the most heavily scrutinised and accountable service in the world, so it would be bizarre for policing functions to be devolved to the community with much less rigorous procedures in place. We oppose the recognition by the state of any community-based restorative justice scheme that places or entrenches paramilitary organisations in a position of control in any part of Northern Ireland, thereby subverting the interrelated values of respect for human rights, democracy and the maintenance of the rule of law; allows or places legitimacy on any parallel policing structures to the Police Service of Northern Ireland; or subverts the concept of a single professional police service working for all the people of Northern Ireland. Community restorative justice schemes must be a complement, not an alternative, to the existing policing and criminal justice systems. They require a formal relationship and, as the IMC argued, there can be no place for an alternative or parallel justice system.