Concern expressed over devolution of justice
Saturday, September 5th, 2009SDLP Youth Press Officer Michelle Byrne expressed concern at the SDLP Youth Annual Conference regarding the devolution of policing and justice powers.
“Devolution is a key part of any legislative assembly. The NI Assembly has devolved all departments but one, the policing and justice department. According to the Northern Ireland Act, section 2 and schedules 2 to 6, “The Assembly is under a duty to review the arrangements for judicial appointments by 1 May 2012.” This means that the Assembly must decide on a Minister for this very crucial department. It is important that the NI Assembly and Executive show leadership and make a decision on this crucial department.”
Under the Good Friday Agreement power is distributed in accordance to each party’s mandate. The number of seats which a party holds in the executive is of course reflected by their mandate. The more votes that are given to a certain party then the more they have in the NI Executive.
Therefore, with the addition of an extra seat in the Executive you would think that the same rule would apply, that the party who deserves the seat would be the party which has mandate to it. But unfortunately not in this political situation.
According to D’Hondt, the system stipulated by the Good Friday Agreement, the SDLP would be the party entitled to the 11th seat around the executive table. But yet surprisingly, Sinn Fein and DUP are proposing to ‘award’ the seat to the Alliance Party.
Michelle said, “This was discussed at the conference this morning and it is obvious that the majority agree something needs to be done about when these powers will be devolved.”



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