attorney general

DUP’s Paul Givan wrote to AG yesterday (not in June) asking if NI Assembly had legislative competence to pass Protection of Unborn Child Act at its sitting on 21 October 2019

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Read through the Private Members Bill that the DUP tried to bring before the NI Assembly using Standing Order 77 this morning. This post previously claimed that the DUP had written to the Attorney General about the bill on 20 June. A DUP spokesperson rebutts that claim: “This was a typing error. The date should have read 20th October rather than 20th June.” Hopefully their bill drafting was more accurate than the letter-writing …

The Legal Implications of Brexit: mechanics, criminal repercussions, and perhaps enhanced protection of rights #EUDebateNI

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Lawyers from across Ireland gathered in Belfast for a conference examining the Legal Implications of Brexit. The complexities of unpicking the UK from the EU were unearthed and discussed, including smuggling, extradition, and the impact on human rights protects. (The Attorney General reckons that Brexit would enhance the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.)

Churches bringing warmth to the public square & Attorney General John Larkin taking exception to Supreme Court judgement against Christian B&B owners

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The Presbyterian Church in Ireland organised a conference yesterday looking at the Church in the Public Square. [Ed – not a new idea.] Two to three hundred people attended: ministers (both clerical and political), laity, as well as representatives from many organisations and faiths. Audio of the three keynote speakers is now available on the PCI website, and I’ll follow-up with a post over on Alan in Belfast in a day or two. In the meantime some snippets that might …

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#Finucane: was Nelson a rogue or rogue agent?

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The Attorney General is going to find it harder and harder to sell his no more inquiries, no more investigations proposal. Particularly so when the improvised methods of ‘investigation’ appear to have been little more than tactics for the British government to avoid decommissioning its own violent legacy. Far from finally drawing a line around the issues connected to the murder of Pat Finucane, further research has now shown that the background given by de Silva on Brian Nelson and …

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#Panorama to show absence of very good tools to critique the state

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Tonight’s BBC Panorama programme will detail allegations about the operation of the Military Reaction Force, or MRF, and how it killed unarmed civilians as part of its work up until 1973. The programme has identified ten unarmed civilians it believes were shot by MRF members operating undercover. It also will include a claim that a Ministry of Defence review concluded that the MRF had “no provision for detailed command and control”. As with so much reportage about ‘the past’, they aren’t particularly new …

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Did local media have a role in the Boston College case?

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I’ve previously noted how some local media seems to get a free pass from the PSNI over their sources/stories while others are dealt with more proactively and recently we’ve seen the press collectively oppose attempts to turn them into an evidence gathering arm of the state. The ongoing legal case to access the Boston College oral history archive may indicate elements of the media already acting in that evidence gathering capacity (hopefully unwittingly). It is impossible to know which arm …

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