Opinion

Newton Emerson: Following murder of Lyra McKee, support for criminal justice system is crucial

Women held hands during a minute's silence at Derry's Guildhall Square organised to commemorate murdered journalist, Lyra McKee. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Women held hands during a minute's silence at Derry's Guildhall Square organised to commemorate murdered journalist, Lyra McKee. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Women held hands during a minute's silence at Derry's Guildhall Square organised to commemorate murdered journalist, Lyra McKee. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

If anyone is convicted for the murder of Lyra McKee, will a ‘justice campaign’ for their acquittal not inevitably follow?

Dissident republicans believe the criminal justice system itself is illegitimate, so they have no ideological difficulty decrying convictions as wrong or unsafe regardless of due process, weight of evidence or the upholding of verdicts on appeal.

There is a regular, recent history of these campaigns then drawing in wider support, or at least acquiescence.

Sinn Féin, the SDLP and parties from the Republic have tended to fall into line like dominoes, each one apparently reluctant to be seen as softer than the other.

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A justice campaign can also often count on the credulity of prominent third-sector and civic society groups. The media is then compelled to report it all as if it was not duplicitous nonsense.

The grief, courage and political consensus witnessed since Lyra McKee’s death is not unprecedented. Previous dissident murders have provoked an identical outpouring. But the wheels of justice grind slowly and by the time cases wind their way through court the justice campaign becomes a large part of the story. Perpetrators are recast in some eyes as victims and dissidents are handed another grievance to exploit.

The criminal justice system can of course make mistakes. It must always be open to independent scrutiny. What is dangerously lacking in Northern Ireland is acknowledgement of the system’s legitimacy, accountability and exhaustive nature. Every part of it has been devolved or agreed by our elected representatives. That includes intelligence oversight of dissident republicans, transferred from the PSNI to MI5 in 2007 in a reform endorsed by that year’s Sinn Féin Ard Fheis and hailed by the party as putting proper structures in place between intelligence and “civic policing”.

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Oversight of MI5 is provided by a UK-wide independent commissioner, a judicial tribunal and a Westminster committee.

The SDLP spent several years after 2007 trying to embarrass Sinn Féin into letting “spooks” operate in Northern Ireland but in this instance the dominoes did not fall - Sinn Féin stood its ground and easily weathered the criticism. It should try the same when spooks are cited by justice campaigns.

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Intelligence evidence is usually central to the conviction of paramilitaries, for obvious and unavoidable reasons. A McKee prosecution is unlikely to be different. Yet the use of intelligence in any conviction is too often portrayed as self-evidently suspicious or even illegitimate. Mainstream republicans backed the principle of intelligence-led operations against dissidents but they still find it challenging to defend in practice on a case by case basis. This is certainly not helped by the cynicism of political rivals and the hand-wringing, verging on hysteria, of some civic society organisations.

Those who appoint themselves to scrutinise the administration of justice in Northern Ireland naturally do not see their role as praising the system’s strengths. They believe they exist exclusively to hold its mistakes to account. However, paramilitaries - dissident and loyalist - create grounds to consider the wider picture. If real problems with policing and justice once threatened peace, contrived problems now do the same, and ensuring a just and peaceful society is supposedly the premise of holding the system to account.

There is a duty on political parties, campaign groups and the media to make clear how normally robust the courts are in reaching convictions. Where trials are held without juries, this is necessary to protect life and ensure fairness, with far higher standards of proof required. Where intelligence evidence is used or heard in private, judges remain fully informed and in control and have shown no tolerance for shortcomings.

Where shortcomings have emerged, they are generally not outrages to justice but very technical issues with the complex procedures for intelligence gathering, designed to ensure high standards - and delivering them.

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It is too much to expect that judges be patted on the head for doing their jobs. However, dissidents should not have been led to expect so much indulgence of their complaints. Although political and third-sector backers tend to melt away as appeals conclusively establish a conviction is safe, there never seems to be a declaration that a campaign was groundless and the actual victims have received justice.

Public revulsion at Lyra McKee’s murder will have no impact on dissident republicans, beyond a short-term lull in their activities. But public confidence in the policing and justice mechanisms we have agreed to use against them is critical to tackling all paramilitarism in the long run.

Nobody should needlessly undermine that confidence through political cowardice or activist grandstanding.

newton@irishnews.com