A 'joined-up approach' could benefit the overseeing of the Republic's justice system, the North's criminal justice inspector Kit Chivers tells Northern Editor Gerry Moriarty
The Roman writer Juvenal asked almost 2,000 years ago, "But who will guard the guards?" Step forward Kit Chivers, criminal justice inspector for Northern Ireland. In fact one of his many functions is to oversee the operations of the office of Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.
So, he is also the man who guards the guards who guard the guards, so to speak. He wonders why he doesn't have a counterpart in the South.
Some Northern politicians - more unionists than nationalists - argue that there is now accountability overload in the North, and that the new Executive could be infernally snarled by all these relentless "Big Brother" mechanisms.
Mr Chivers, aged in the "early 60 bracket", arrived in the North from England four years ago after a career spent mainly in the British treasury.
He provides his own brief biography: "What you need to know about me is that there is a striking similarity between me and Inspector Morse in that we are both Oxford-educated, both live on our own and play opera in the evening and both drive Jaguars, and are really grumpy."
This Merseysider with a classics background is hardly grumpy. Amiable but with a steely reserve, fits him better: required personal qualities to deal with the North's justice agencies.
If you view Mr Chivers's empire of operations you could be forgiven for empathising with the argument of excessive scrutiny. He inspects the PSNI - as do the ombudsman, the Policing Board and 14 other bodies, according to chief constable Sir Hugh Orde - the prison service, forensic science, pathology, the probation board, the public prosecution service, and several other bodies besides.
Moreover, Mr Chivers has additional sensitive briefs, addressing how sex offenders should be managed in the community, and whether community restorative justice schemes should be allowed operate in republican and loyalist areas.
And he has specific views, too, on how Northern Ireland can deal with its past. So, is there too much probing? "There is a huge amount but it is for a purpose and it is declining," he says.
"For instance, the justice oversight commissioner has gone out of existence now and the police oversight commissioner, Al Hutchinson, has written his final report and is off the scene."
Two of his most critical reports - on the North's forensics and pathology agencies - were published in 2005. These agencies are key in prosecution cases.
For example, in the case of Seán Hoey, whose trial on several charges connected with the Omagh bombing has concluded - the verdict is awaited - defence lawyers castigated the forensics evidence. In fact how the judge rules on the forensics could determine the result.
The point Mr Chivers makes here is that his function has a concrete relevance and that it is vital to have a centralised body addressing the varied areas of the judicial system. He has no equivalent in the South.
He is impressed by the respective heads of the Republic's Garda and prisons inspectorates, Kathleen O'Toole and Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen, but wonders - particularly in the case of prisons - are they properly resourced.
An overall justice inspectorate would serve the Republic well, he feels. "What I would say to readers in the South, as it were, is that there is a lot to be said for a joined-up approach to criminal justice inspection because, whatever subject you look at, whether it's management of sex offenders or disclosure of difficult information in the court, or management of forensic evidence, whatever you're looking at, it always crosses departmental boundaries," he explains.
"And agencies are always very quick to blame one another for failures to the system . . . the police will blame the prosecution, the prosecution will blame the courts, and so on," adds Mr Chivers.
The fact that he is from across the water allows him a dispassionate approach to difficult matters, which is useful. He has enjoyed his period in Northern Ireland but is constantly struck by how the past intrudes and impedes the present in many sensitive areas.
He says that while "every reasonable person recognises there are huge amounts of unresolved pain out there" there is no doubt, that as Sir Hugh Orde often says, "the past is a burden on the criminal justice system".
Getting the balance right is the challenge, he says. That means establishing a system which allows criminal justice work in the present, is reasonably cost-effective, and works to the satisfaction of everyone, particularly victims.
Mr Chivers particularly favours one of five proposals by the Healing Through Remembering group: British security services and paramilitaries - without fear of prosecution - and victims would separately report to a central body, which would draw the information together and report in the hope of achieving a form of truth and bringing some satisfaction and comfort to the victims.
"Dreadful things have happened in these sectors [security forces and paramilitaries]," he says. "There are bad people but not everyone involved in the Troubles are necessarily bad people in any of the sectors.
"A lot were people who were doing what they saw as their duty at the time," he adds, not uncontroversially.
"We have got to see it from the point of view of the actors at the time, to see what were their loyalties, what were their motivations. We are all irrevocably now committed to peace and reconciliation."