Preposterous is right
The problem with Secretary of State Peter Hain’s repeated insistence that he doesn’t need to say anything more, or that “The Stormont decision by the Public Prosecution Service is a matter for the judiciary and is not a matter for the politicians”, however emphatic he is, is that all of the theories presented that explain the decision involve political interference.. oh and no-one actually believes him. Only by being open about that decision, and clarifying what public interest is being served, can the distinct whiff of conspiracy be dispelled.
Tags: Government
Hain is running this place like a lofty colonial governor. This whole farce just reminds me of how badly we need working devolution and (dare I degenerate into Shinner speak) devolved justice. Our politicians all agree that something stinks – a cross-party investigative committee might have been able to bring in the necessary accountability.
We are now in the situation, as someone else noted the other day, where the public interest isn’t being defined to an interested public.
You’re right, Comrade, the present situation leaves no one satisfied – except Hain, of course. He has displeased all sides so he must be clapping himself on the back for a ‘Job Well Done’. God, to think I had such respect for him in his struggles in apartheid S. Africa. Now he’s just another Labour place-man, here today and here tomorrow. And if he doesn’t see the parallels in the twisting of the rule of law carried out by his former rulers and this, as carried out by him as part of Tony’s Phoneys, may his tan fade overnight. Viceroy rule OK!
As a member of the public it leaves me rather staggered being told that something is not of my interest even if it’s concerning me.
The Sunday Times was claiming that the case was dropped to protect the identity of a civilian informant. It has also been suggested that in the absence of an IRA terrorist campaign the prosecution would have failed. No one to do the dirty work, no information likely to be of use to terrorists. QED.
aquifer
Gerry Moriarty related that theory [of an informant] and others in the Irish Times, a day or so before the Sunday Times version hit the press, at the link I provided in the original post.