Reaction: The British government's community restorative justice (CRJ) proposals announced yesterday are damaging to the rule of law and leave working-class communities in danger of very rough justice, according to SDLP leader Mark Durkan.
Mr Durkan said the SDLP was "profoundly concerned" about the revised proposals notwithstanding a commitment by the North's criminal justice minister David Hanson that the PSNI would be centrally involved and that members of the CRJ schemes would be carefully vetted.
"The NIO are spinning that they have taken account of the SDLP's concerns. In fact, the only significant improvement is that there is now a requirement that restorative justice groups deal directly with the police," he said.
But it is possible for them only to do so in writing - without actually sitting down with the police and answering their questions," he said.
Mr Durkan asked how the British government was prepared to sanction and fund schemes in republican areas when Sinn Féin refused to endorse the police, when a "culture of paramilitary control persists in some communities, leaving people too scared to speak out" and when "those involved may have been convicted before the Good Friday agreement of paramilitary-related crimes such as punishment beatings".
Mr Durkan said it was vital that CRJ groups accepted the legitimate definition of a crime - "and not Sinn Féin's warped version that says that shooting a mother of 10 through the head is okay so long as the IRA authorises it".
He added: "No group should be paid a penny that obstructs the right of citizens to justice. The government would never introduce such guidelines in Britain, nor would they be tolerated in the South, so why should people have to live with lesser rights here?"
Jim Auld of the CRJ scheme in nationalist west Belfast said his organisation would carefully consider the proposals but he did not believe his group could sign up to the guidelines.
It was unfair to expect it to make a key decision on policing when this was a matter for the politicians, Mr Auld said.
"To expect us, an individual community group, to step over the mark, while those political negotiations on policing are going on, is unrealistic and unjust," he said.
Sinn Féin justice spokesman Gerry Kelly said CRJ schemes provided a valuable service, especially to those most disadvantaged and most alienated from the formal criminal justice system, and should be given formal British government funding.
"Those who have been orchestrating a smear campaign against restorative justice programmes have been doing so for narrow party political interests," he said.
"Their agenda and the attempts to politically vet those who are pioneering restorative justice on this island should not be allowed to threaten progress. The human rights community and those overseeing transformation of the justice system have all given their support for community-based restorative justice programmes."
UUP policing spokesman Fred Cobain welcomed the fact that CRJ schemes must now deal directly with police but did not believe the proposals were tight enough to avoid future difficulties.
The DUP opposed the proposals as did the Conservative spokesman on Northern Ireland, David Lidington.
"The vetting arrangements specifically allow for people with substantial criminal convictions before 1998, such as the murder of police officers, to be active players in CRJ schemes. This would be unacceptable anywhere else in the United Kingdom and should not be tolerated in Northern Ireland," he said.
