NI: N Ireland: "Emergency" continues
01 May 1995
Four months after the renewal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Emergency Provisions Act was once again approved at Westminster on 12 June. First enacted in 1973 to replace the Special Powers Act, the EPA still contains the power to authorise internment without trial and is the legislative basis of the juryless "Diplock" courts, established on the recommendation of Lord Diplock's report on "legal procedures to deal with terrorist activities" of 1972.
The EPA was renewed following the government's receipt of John Rowe's report on the operation of the Act in 1994, published on 18 May, and his review of the EPA published in February. The British government believes the EPA is still necessary and so does John Rowe. In chapter 1 of his review, Rowe discusses the IRA ceasefire and records that he was urged to stop work and alter his approach:
"the point was made that to continue working, and to propose any provisions or powers such as are found in the EPA would send the wrong signal; there was now, it was said, an opportunity to take a new approach, and establish a human rights culture in a new statute..."
Rowe did not stop work until 1st October. By that date he had "read the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. He had also concluded that a new EPA was necessary. As he saw it:
"I should make it clear that I do not intend to send any signals; and my terms of reference do not include the making of any political gestures, or statements, and I do not wish to make any. I do not play any part in any peace process or negotiations. I am independent. I am not a member of the Government; I am not bound by its policies".
Rowe's review stands in stark contrast to the Committee on the Administration of Justice's latest report, Emergency legislation related to Northern Ireland: the case for repeal. The argument of this report is simple: no emergency, no emergency law, although "CAJ has always taken the view that there is neither necessity nor justification for the panoply of emergency measures relied on by the authorities". CAJ's new pamphlet reminds us that there has rarely been a moment in the last two hundred years when Ireland was not governed under special coercion acts.
The British government, in July of this year, is due to appear before the UN Human Rights Committee for an assessment of its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the UK. It is already several months late in submitting its case to the Committee. The government's continued argument for derogation from the ICCPR with respect to seven-day detention powers would be surprising in current circumstances, even if in keeping with the inclusion of emergency laws in the list of "measures designed to promote human rights" in its policy document on "policy appraisal and fair treatment" (PAFT).
Review of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1991, London: HMSO, Cm. 2706.