Northern Ireland Bill (Allocation of Time)

Any party is, of course, entitled to raise debate in this place; that is what this place is about. However, we also have to respect and recognise that in the process of improvement and change towards peace and progress in Northern Ireland, certain key staging posts have been reached. A very important staging post was the criminal justice review in 2000 and the subsequent legislation that went through the House. We have to respect that. Without that settlement, much development of the criminal justice process in Northern Ireland that has happened since would not have happened. The question of independence is important. I return to what the document itself says:""in the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, we believe that this independence should be further strengthened, by ensuring that the relationship between the Attorney General and the head of the prosecution service, while containing elements of oversight, is consultative and not supervisory. In other words, there should be no power for the Attorney General to direct the prosecutor, whether in individual cases or on policy matters."" Indeed, reference was made to Lord Mayhew’s comments during the passage of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002:""Given the highly charged atmosphere of Northern Ireland—to use a well-chosen word that appears in the review—it is important that this enormously invasive prosecution arm of the state should be exercised in Northern Ireland by an official who is entirely independent. That is a departure from the current system in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2002; Vol. 636, CWH 93.]" So it is a different system, but a system that, following the review, was felt to be highly appropriate for Northern Ireland. That does not mean that the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions do not have a relationship: they do; it is a very strong relationship that is bound by statutory consultation. As I said earlier, there will be robust exchanges between the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions in drawing up the code of practice for prosecutors. They have a statutory relationship in terms of consultation but not in terms of superintendence or direction.