Opinion

Newton Emerson: De-proscribing paramilitary organisations should not be ruled out

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Jim Wilson, Winston Irvine, David Campbell and Jackie McDonald at the unveiling of a Somme centenary flag by the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC). Picture Mal McCann.
Jim Wilson, Winston Irvine, David Campbell and Jackie McDonald at the unveiling of a Somme centenary flag by the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC). Picture Mal McCann. Jim Wilson, Winston Irvine, David Campbell and Jackie McDonald at the unveiling of a Somme centenary flag by the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC). Picture Mal McCann.

“Anyone with any evidence that someone may be part of a proscribed terrorist organisation should pass that information to the police.”

So tweeted Alliance MP Stephen Farry, in response to the DUP leadership meeting the Loyalist Communities Council.

Imagine if that actually happened - if every resident or official dealing with a ‘community group’ or every politician sitting down with a ‘political wing’ dialled 999 to say they had grounds to suspect a breach of section 11 of the Terrorism Act 2000, that is, membership or professed membership of a proscribed organisation, an offence punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

Of course, the PSNI would be too busy to pick up the phone, given the mountain of evidence it is sitting on itself.

Farry described an ideal scenario whose absurdity in practice reveals where we really stand on tackling paramilitarism.

Law and ethics have been suborned into a vague question of timing.

The executive’s policy on tackling paramilitarism, shared with the police and other government agencies, is “support for transition”. This implies a time-frame, yet there is no indication of how long transition should take.

Time limits are proposed, although not given, for individual projects and budgets within the policy’s ‘Action Plan’ but there is no schedule to bring the action to a conclusion.

Progress is monitored by an independent commission, which will only say “transition cannot continue indefinitely”.

Alliance justice minister Naomi Long, whose department ‘owns’ the policy, concurs it cannot go on forever but has not specified when it should end.

While it may be ludicrous to have paramilitary organisations 23 years after the Good Friday Agreement, it remains equally ludicrous to expect the police to shut them all down tomorrow. So we are stuck in an endlessly extending limbo.

The executive’s policy is supposedly tougher and more urgent than its predecessors. It was part of the 2015 Fresh Start agreement between the DUP, Sinn Féin and the British and Irish governments and has been reaffirmed in every Stormont deal since. The approach is carrot and stick, with carrots of funding and engagement and sticks of law enforcement and the seizure of assets.

Engagement with paramilitaries is not directly acknowledged in the policy but the term “stakeholder” covers a multitude of sins. The use of civil powers to seize assets is highly effective but still adds to the general sense of nod and wink. Even when the policy is working, its open-ended nature makes the compromises involved needlessly corrosive.

Would a deadline help, with ultimate delivery and the credibility of the rule of law in the meantime?

The Good Friday Agreement contained a two-year deadline for decommissioning. The St Andrews Agreement contained an 18-month time-frame, if not quite a deadline, for devolving policing and justice. Both dates were missed by years. It could be argued they were still vital to concentrating minds or alternatively that they caused enough problems to be counter-productive. The point is that we are not even having this argument about paramilitary transition.

Perhaps reluctance to put a final date on the journey stems from confusion over the destination. What constitutes the end of a proscribed organisation? The Provisional IRA decommissioned, ‘stood down’ and is committed to peace, according to intelligence assessments, yet still exists, has weapons and exerts political control, according to the same assessments.

Loyalists complain the IRA is tolerated because Sinn Féin wins elections, so loyalists should be afforded similar leeway, as endorsement at the ballot box is hardly a mitigating factor under the Terrorism Act.

One way to address this perceived imbalance and bring a conclusive end to a proscribed organisation would be to de-proscribe it, if and when it becomes sufficiently benign.

A focus on tackling crime, including organised crime, could continue. Membership is in any case a difficult charge to prosecute.

The Loyalist Communities Council advocated de-proscription in 2017, noting outlawed organisations can apply to a Home Office appeals process. The UDA was not banned for most of the Troubles and asked to be de-proscribed as far back as 2006 to aid transition to a “community-based organisation”.

There has always been horror at these suggestions, as there would be if the IRA asked to be legalised - something republican ideology is presumably preventing. Any such moves would require a full recognition that past violence was being repudiated, not legitimised. But if that was accepted, de-proscription must at least be considered - if only to pin down what other finishing line this policy is meant to reach.