A leading human-rights group in the North has expressed strong reservations about the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Review carried out under the Belfast Agreement.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) fears the recommendations in the report, which was released in March, would not be implemented fully because it is being left in the hands of civil servants.
"We are therefore firmly of the view that a role for independent members of the review be found in the implementation process," it said. The CAJ called for an independent oversight commissioner similar to that for the Patten report. The group said that the experience of the Patten report suggested that the changes recommended by the review "will be the ceiling rather than the floor of the process of change to the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland".
The group was particularly critical of the fact that the review had been prevented from examining emergency anti-terrorist legislation. "In the event that emergency laws continue to operate, the future of the recommendations of the review may be fatally flawed in terms of public confidence," it said.
The CAJ called for previous contentious cases where the Director of Public Prosecutions had not prosecuted to be examined so as not to cast a shadow over the new prosecution service.
The review recommended that where a decision not to prosecute was made, the reasons should be made public, except where the interests of justice or the public interest precluded this. The CAJ said there was a fear that security would be used as an excuse for not making reasons public and could be used as a shield for the security forces. In such cases the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission should be informed so as to allay public concern, the CAJ said. The CAJ welcomed the recommendations that lawyers and judges no longer wear wigs and that royal symbols be removed from courtrooms but said these measures did not go far enough.
All such symbols should be removed totally, it argued. This should be done now in the context of the agreement "which received widespread support from the electorate, has more legitimacy and will be less divisive" than later on foot of legal or government action.