The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

MARCH 1994

practitioners looking for a straightforward, accurate and concise statement of legal principle will, perhaps, welcome this. I was personally glad to see the question of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland addressed by Brice Dickson in the introductory chapter. Mr. Dickson makes clear that the CAJ believes that a more comprehensive Bill of Rights is required for Northern Ireland. He says that the law of Northern Ireland is quite invasive in the area of civil liberties and places many constraints on the rights of people. These constraints are, in his view, "so far reaching and the discretion conferred on administrative bodies so all-embracing that the resulting liberty is at times very narrow in scope". Mr. Dickson believes that a Bill of Rights would not only increase confidence in the administration of justice but also improve the content of the law and make people more physically secure. The CAJ has, in fact, published its own Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and has suggested that this should be enshrined in the law. In a divided society, the protection of individual rights is vital. The publication of this handbook will help to improve understanding of the complexity of the issues involved and of the nature of conflict in such a society. By J.R. Spencer and Rhona Flin, second edition, 1993, Blackstone Press Ltd., 465pp, softback, £21.95 stg. Recently the English courts and the media have highlighted the evidence of children generally in the sad case of the Jamie Bulger murder in Liverpool. The Evidence of Children - the Law and the Psychology is the second edition of a book first published in 1990. The authors are a lawyer and a psychologist. The book outlines the English and Scottish legal systems mainly and there is also reference to the Northern Ireland legal system of the law relating to the Noel C. Ryan The Evidence of Children - The Law and The Psychology

aided. The repeal of the Flags and Emblems Act, which made it unlawful to display the tricolour, was also important symbolically. But perhaps the most important change was the transformation which was brought about in policing and, while much of this took place before the signing of the Agreement (principally the abolition of the special constabulary), the increasing professionalism of the RUC was accelerated after the Agreement and was a matter that prompted much favourable comment on this side of the border. Significant progress was also made in equality and which has, through vigorous monitoring by the Fair Employment Commission in Northern Ireland, kept the spotlight on this vital area. It is clear, therefore, that civil liberties - in all their diverse aspects - are very much at the heart of the divisions in Northern Ireland and this handbook (which is an updated version of a handbook first published in 1990) will be widely welcomed by people with an interest in the topic. Brice Dickson, its editor, is to be commended for bringing together a very comprehensive range of essays on all aspects of civil liberties in Northern Ireland. The handbook deals not only with issues that have been at the heart of the debate over civil rights in Northern Ireland, such as the powers of the police and the army, the questioning of suspects, and the impact of the Prevention of Terrorism Act but also a wide range of social issues such as sex discrimination, rights of disabled people, education and social security rights. This is essentially a textbook that sets out the law applicable in all these areas and practitioners will find it an extremely useful source of information. None of the essays has been written from any political or ideological standpoint; the writers have attempted to set out in a factual way the prevailing provisions affecting the particular 'right' or 'civil liberty' being discussed. There is not, therefore, very much by way of subjective comment or analysis on the shortcomings of the law and the area of employment by the enactment in 1989 of new Fair Employment legislation which went considerably further than previous legislation in providing a framework for

The CAJ Handbook on Civil Liberties in Northern Ireland

Editor: Brice Dickson, second edition, published by the Committee on the Administration of Justice, Belfast, 1993, softback, 387pp Over the years, the administration of justice in Northern Ireland has been at the core of the conflict there and those who are familiar with more recent history in Northern Ireland will be aware of the important role played by the Civil Rights Movement in focusing attention on aspects of the administration there before the Stormont Parliament was prorogued. Although the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, prohibited the Northern Ireland Parliament from discriminating on grounds of religion, nationalists in Northern Ireland felt that, under the old Stormont regime, equality of treatment, especially in housing, employment and, for many years, in local government franchise, was denied them and their citizenship was less equal than that of their Unionist brethren. Their dissatisfaction culminated, in the late 1960s, in an active civil rights campaign which, mainly because of the intransigence and inept handling of the Stormont Government, erupted into civil disorder. One of the primary objectives of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 was the establishment of a framework through which nationalists in Northern Ireland could achieve redress in areas of civil liberties, particularly in relation to the administration of justice but also, of course, in relation to employment. The Irish Government was given a role under the Agreement and has, since 1985, acted, in a sense, as the guardian of nationalist rights. Principally through the operation of the Anglo-Irish Secretariat at Maryfield, steady progress has been made in improving the position of nationalists. The Agreement, for the first time, conferred legitimacy on those who aspired, through democratic means, to a united Ireland. The Irish language was given official recognition and Irish language schools have, since the Agreement, been grant-