[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 86 (Friday, June 30, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6261-S6266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENATE RESOLUTION 332--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE WITH RESPECT 
                TO THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

  Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Leahy, and Mr. Mack) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 332

       Whereas the April 10, 1998 Good Friday Agreement 
     established a framework for the peaceful settlement of the 
     conflict in Northern Ireland;
       Whereas the Good Friday Agreement stated that it provided 
     ``the opportunity for a new beginning to policing in Northern 
     Ireland with a police service capable of attracting and 
     sustaining support from the community as a whole'';
       Whereas the Good Friday Agreement provided for the 
     establishment of an Independent Commission on Policing to 
     make ``recommendations for future policing arrangements in 
     Northern Ireland including means of encouraging widespread 
     community support for these arrangements'';
       Whereas the Independent Commission on Policing, led by Sir 
     Christopher Patten, concluded its work on September 9, 1999 
     and proposed 175 recommendations in its final report to 
     ensure a new beginning to policing, consistent with the 
     requirements in the Good Friday Agreement;
       Whereas the Patten report explicitly ``warned in the 
     strongest terms against cherry-picking from this report or 
     trying to implement some major elements of it in isolation 
     from others'';
       Whereas section 405 of the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg 
     Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 
     2000 and 2001 (as contained in H.R. 3427, as enacted by 
     section 1000(a)(7) of Public Law 106-113, and as contained in 
     appendix G to such Public Law) requires President Clinton to 
     certify, among other things, that the Governments of the 
     United Kingdom and Ireland are committed to assisting in the 
     full implementation of the recommendations contained in the 
     Patten Commission report issued on September 9, 1999 before 
     the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other Federal law 
     enforcement agency can provide training for the Royal Ulster 
     Constabulary;
       Whereas a May 5, 2000, joint letter by the British Prime 
     Minister and the Irish Prime Minister stated that 
     ``legislation to implement the Patten report will, subject to 
     Parliament, be enacted by November 2000'';
       Whereas on May 16, 2000 the British Government published 
     the proposed Police (Northern Ireland) bill, which purports 
     to implement in law the Patten report;
       Whereas many of the signatories to the Good Friday 
     Agreement have stated that the draft bill does not live up to 
     the letter or spirit of the Patten report and dilutes or does 
     not implement many key recommendations of the Patten 
     Commission;
       Whereas Northern Ireland's main nationalist parties have 
     indicated that they will not participate or encourage 
     participation in the new policing structures unless the 
     Patten report is fully implemented; and
       Whereas on June 15, 2000, British Secretary of State for 
     Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson said, ``I remain absolutely 
     determined to implement the Patten recommendations and to 
     achieve the effective and representative policing service, 
     accepted in every part of Northern Ireland, that his report 
     aimed to secure'': Now, therefore, be it
         Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) commends the parties for progress to date in 
     implementing all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement and 
     urges them to move expeditiously to complete the 
     implementation;
       (2) believes that the full and speedy implementation of the 
     recommendations of the Independent Commission on Policing for 
     Northern Ireland holds the promise of ensuring that the 
     police service in Northern Ireland will gain the support of 
     both nationalists and unionists and that ``policing 
     structures and arrangements are such that the police service 
     is fair and impartial, free from partisan political control, 
     accountable . . . to the community it serves, representative 
     of the society that it polices . . . [and] complies with 
     human rights norms'', as mandated by the Good Friday 
     Agreement; and
       (3) calls upon the British Government to fully and 
     faithfully implement the recommendations contained in the 
     September 9, 1999, Patten Commission report on policing.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today Senators Dodd, Leahy, Mack, and I 
are introducing a resolution on police reform in Northern Ireland.
  Policing has long been a contentious issue in Northern Ireland. The 
deep historical divisions in Northern Ireland have, according to the 
April 19, 1998 Good Friday Agreement, made policing ``highly emotive, 
with great hurt suffered and sacrifices made by many individuals and 
their families.''
  The Good Friday Agreement presented an historic opportunity to create 
a new police service that is accountable, impartial, representative, 
based on respect for human rights, and that works in constructive 
partnership with the entire community. It provided for the 
establishment of an Independent Commission on Policing to make 
recommendations for Northern Ireland, including ways to encourage 
widespread community support for the police. The Commission, chaired by 
Sir Christopher Patten, concluded its work on September 9, 1999, and 
issued a final report with 175 recommendations to ensure a new 
beginning for policing in Northern Ireland.
  On May 5, a joint letter by the British Prime Minister and the Irish 
Prime Minister stated that ``legislation to implement the Patten report 
will, subject to Parliament, be enacted by November 2000.'' On May 16, 
the British Government published its proposed legislation to implement 
in law the Patten report.
  Unfortunately, the draft bill does not live up to the letter or 
spirit of the Patten report. It dilutes or does not implement many of 
its key recommendations. Northern Ireland's main nationalist parties 
and representatives of the Catholic Church are deeply concerned about 
the proposed legislation, and they have indicated that they will not 
participate or encourage participation in the new policing structures 
unless the Patten report is fully implemented. I ask unanimous consent 
that documents outlining concerns with the draft legislation may be 
included in the Record at the end of my remarks.
  British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson, has 
recognized that the bill ``will need fine

[[Page S6262]]

tuning'' as it proceeds through the Parliament. On June 15, he said, 
``I remain absolutely determined to implement the Patten 
recommendations and to achieve the effective and representative 
policing service--accepted in every part of Northern Ireland--that his 
report aimed to secure.''
  The resolution we are introducing today expresses the Sense of the 
Senate that the full and speedy implementation of the recommendations 
of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland holds 
the best hope of ensuring that the police service in Northern Ireland 
will gain the support of both nationalists and unionists and that 
``policing structures and arrangements are such that the police service 
is fair and impartial, free from partisan political control, 
accountable . . . to the community it serves, representative of the 
society that it polices . . . [and] complies with human rights norms,'' 
as mandated by the Good Friday Agreement. It calls upon the British 
Government to fully and faithfully implement the recommendations 
contained in the Patten Commission report.
  The Patten report explicitly ``warned in the strongest terms against 
cherry-picking from this report or trying to implement some major 
elements of it in isolation from others.'' Section 405 of the Foreign 
Relations Authorization Act (as enacted in the Consolidated 
Appropriations Act for FY2000, P.L. 106-113) requires President Clinton 
to certify that the British and Irish governments are committed to 
assisting in the full implementation of the Patten recommendations 
before the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other federal law 
enforcement agency can provide training for the Royal Ulster 
Constabulary. It would be extremely unfortunate if the shortcomings in 
the policing bill prevent President Clinton from making this 
certification.
  Police reform is essential in Northern Ireland to ensure fairness and 
to strengthen the peace process. The Patten report has the potential to 
create a genuine new police service that will have and deserve the 
trust of all the people in Northern Ireland. It would be a tragedy if 
this opportunity to achieve a new beginning in policing is lost. I urge 
the Senate to approve this resolution.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        What a Travesty--Police Bill Is Just a Parody of Patten

                          (By Brendan O'Leary)

       There are two ways in which the Police (Northern Ireland) 
     Bill before Parliament should be read. The first is to check 
     whether as promised by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of 
     State, and the accompanying Explanatory Notes issued by the 
     Northern Ireland Office it effectively implements the report 
     of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern 
     Ireland, and thereby is consistent with the terms of the 
     Belfast Agreement. The second is to assess whether the Bill 
     will provide policing arrangements that are appropriate to a 
     democratic state, and that will stabilize Northern Ireland.
       My assessment is negative on both counts. The Bill 
     therefore requires radical amendment by the friends of the 
     Belfast Agreement in Parliament, and if these radical 
     amendments are not made I believe it is essential that 
     genuine supporters of the Agreement should vote against this 
     Bill becoming law. It does not implement the Patten Report: 
     What it implements is a slightly re-worked version of the 
     Police (Northern Ireland) Act of 1998, with half-hearted nods 
     in the direction of Patten. It is not just not good enough; 
     in some respects it is worse than the status quo.
       The Patten Report, by contrast, met its terms of reference 
     under the Belfast Agreement. Eight criteria were either 
     explicitly or implicitly mandated for the commissioner, I 
     shall compare these directly with what is offered in the Bill 
     before Parliament.


                              impartiality

       The first term of reference for Patten and his 
     commissioners was to recommend how to create a widely 
     acceptable ``impartial'' service. The Commission chose to 
     avoid proposing an explicitly bi-national or bi-cultural 
     police. Instead it plumped for neutral impartiality between 
     unionism/localism and nationalism/republicanism. Its 
     preference, the Northern Ireland Police Service (NIPS), was a 
     neutral title, not least because nationalists in the 1998 
     referendum, North and South, overwhelmingly accepted the 
     current status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK, as long 
     as a majority so determine. The RUC was not a neutral title, 
     so it was recommended to go, period. The codes of police 
     officers and their future training were to reflect a 
     commitment to impartiality and respect for democratic 
     unionism/loyalism and democratic nationalism/republicanism. 
     The display of the Union flag and the portrait of the Queen 
     at police stations were recommended to go to dissociate the 
     police from identification with the Union, the Crown and the 
     British nation. In Patten's words symbols should be ``free 
     from association with the British or Irish states''.
       Patten's recommendations for a territory that is primarly 
     divided into two communities that are of almost equal size 
     but that have rival national allegiances were entirely 
     sensible. They flowed straightforwardly from the Belfast 
     Agreement's commitment to establishing ``parity of esteem'' 
     between the national traditions, and the British government's 
     commitment to ``rigorous impartiality'' in its 
     administration.
       The Bill proposes that the Secretary of State be given the 
     power to decide on the issues of name and emblems at some 
     point in the future, not a stay of execution, but a stay of 
     decision. The Bill does not deal with these matters as Patten 
     recommended, and this must be corrected as the Bill makes its 
     way through Parliament. It would not be a recipe for re-
     igniting conflict, and a gift to republican dissidents, if 
     the Secretary of State were to opt, when he makes his 
     decision, to retain the name of the RUC as part of the 
     reformed police's working title.
       A title such as the ``Police Service of Northern Ireland 
     incorporating the RUC whose long-serving members are not 
     required to take the new oath of service'', would be a 
     mockery, replacing the virtues of political compromise with 
     surrender to blackmail.


                   ``Representative'' Police service

       Patten's second term of reference was to establish a 
     ``representative'' police service. The commissioners proposed 
     recruiting Catholics and non-Catholics in a 50:50 ratio from 
     the pool of qualified candidates for the next ten years. This 
     matches the population ratios in the younger age-cohorts. On 
     their model--given early and scheduled retirements of serving 
     officers--this policy would ensure that 30 percent of the 
     service would be of Catholic origin by year 10, and between 
     17 percent and 19 percent within four years (above the 
     critical mass of 15 percent that they claimed is necessary to 
     change the police's character). This is a significantly 
     slower pace of change than some of us advocated, but the 
     commissioners justified it because they wished to avoid a 
     service that would have non-Catholic Chiefs and Catholic 
     Indians. By intending to make each successive cohort 
     religiously representative now, and by ensuring that the 
     new service would be seen as impartial, the commissioners 
     had an arguable case. Steps would, of course, still need 
     to be taken to ensure that the new Catholics are broadly 
     representative of the Catholic community--i.e. mostly 
     nationalist or republican in political opinion. There 
     would also need to be sufficient secondments from the 
     Garda Siochana and elsewhere to ensure a representative 
     array of senior police of Catholic origin.
       The Police Bill makes a mockery of these recommendations. 
     The period in which the police are to be recruited on a 50:50 
     basis has been reduced to three years, with any extension 
     requiring a decision by the Secretary of State.
       The Bill is completely silent on aggregation, the policy 
     proposed by Patten for dealing with years in which there 
     might be a shortfall in the recruitment of suitably qualified 
     cultural Catholics, and it is also dangerously silent on 
     targeting. The Bill does not even make clear whether the 
     Government will explicitly do what is necessary to meet the 
     ``critical mass'' identified by Patten.
       As drafted it is a recipe for minute change, that on 
     current demographic trends will ensure that a shrinking 
     minority of men of unionist disposition will police a growing 
     minority of nationalist disposition.


                  free from partisan political control

       A third term of reference required Patten to propose 
     policing arrangements ``free from partisan control.''
       The Commission's task was to ensure democratic 
     accountability of policing ``at all levels'' while preventing 
     any dominant political party from being able to direct the 
     police to their advantage. The proposed Policing Board was to 
     meet this objective. On Patten's model it would represent 
     members from political parties present in the Executive, 
     according to the d'Hondt rule of proportional allocation. The 
     District Policing Partnership Boards (DPPBs) should also have 
     met this objective--twenty out of twenty six local government 
     districts now have office-rotation or power-sharing 
     agreements.
       Those seeking to amend the Bill should consider formally 
     extending the d'Hondt principle to party representatives on 
     the DPPBs a step entirely consistent with the Agreement.
       The Bill thwarts Patten on the criterion of avoiding 
     partisan control. By introducing a requirement that the 
     Policing Board operate according to a weighted majority when 
     recommending an inquiry it effectively re-establishes 
     partisan unionist control. On Patten's model, ten members of 
     the Policing Board would come from the parties in the current 
     Executive--currently five nationalists and five unionists, 
     and the other nine would have been nominated by the First 
     Minister and Deputy First Ministers, which would likely and 
     reasonably imply a slight majority broadly of unionist 
     disposition--a reflection of Northern Ireland society. Under

[[Page S6263]]

     the model proposed in the Bill, the nine appointed members 
     will, in the first instance, be appointed by the Secretary of 
     State, not foreseen by Patten. But even if this produces the 
     same outcomes as joint nominations from the First and Deputy 
     First Ministers the Bill's proposed weighted majority rule 
     will give unionists and unionist approved members a blocking 
     minority on matters as fundamental as pursuing reasonable 
     inquiries into allegations about police misconduct or 
     incompetence.
       This is a direct violation of the terms of reference of the 
     Agreement.


                    efficient and effective policing

       A fourth criterion set for Patten was to promote 
     ``efficient and effective'' policing arrangements. Here the 
     commissioners scored highly. They deliberately avoided false 
     economies. Generous severance and early retirement packages 
     were to ease quite fast changes in the composition and ethos 
     of the current personnel. They reasoned that an over-sized 
     police service could fulfill the following tasks:
       Begin a novel and far-reaching experiment in community 
     policing;
       Deter hard-line paramilitaries opposed to the Agreement, 
     and those tempted to return to active combat;
       Manage large-scale public order functions (mostly 
     occasioned by the Loyal Orders); and
       Facilitate faster changes in the services' religious and 
     gender composition than might otherwise be possible.
       The provisions enabling local governments to experiment and 
     out-source policing services were also designed to ``market-
     test'' effectiveness, while the steps recommended to produce 
     greater ``civilianisation'' were to free personnel for 
     mainstream policing tasks and deliver long-run savings.
       The Bill is multiply at odds with Patten on efficiency and 
     effectiveness. It fails to provide a clearly effective system 
     of accountability, which means that existing inefficiencies 
     will continue to flourish, and ineffectiveness will be 
     overlooked. The Secretary of State is, bizarrely, 
     empowered to prevent an inquiry by the Policing Board if 
     it is deemed not to be in the interests of efficiency and 
     the effectiveness of the police as if the prime activity 
     of a Board which requires a weighted majority to start an 
     enquiry will be to embark on wasteful investigations! The 
     Secretary of State, and not the Policing Board, is charged 
     with setting targets and performance indicators for the 
     police a recipe for producing an ineffective Board, `not 
     the strong independent and powerful Board' that Patten 
     recommended. The full-time reserve, which Patten 
     recommended should be disbanded, in the interests of 
     efficiency and promoting fast changes in composition, is, 
     so far as I can tell, left on a statutory basis in the 
     Bill. And the District Policing Partnership Boards have 
     been eviscerated because of propaganda about 
     paramilitaries on the rates. It is simply amazing that 
     grown-up people could accuse Christopher Patten, an 
     intelligent Tory, of signing a report to subsidize 
     paramilitarism; but it is perhaps more amazing that the 
     Government can present this Bill as a text to implement 
     the Patten Report.


                          human rights culture

       A fifth term of reference which Patten had to meet was 
     policing arrangements infused with a human rights culture. 
     Patten's commissioners did their job. It is proposed that new 
     and serving officers would have knowledge of human rights 
     built into their training and re-training (provided by non-
     police personnel) and their codes of practice. The 
     astonishing absence of legal personnel within the RUC with 
     expertise in human rights was singled out for remedy. The 
     incorporation of the European Convention into UK public law, 
     and Northern Ireland's own forthcoming special provisions to 
     strengthen the rights of national, religious and cultural 
     minorities, were welcomed as likely to ensure that policing 
     and legal arrangements have to perform to higher standards 
     than in the past, but other international norms were also 
     held out as benchmarks: `compliance * * * with international 
     human rights standards and norms are * * * an important 
     safeguard both to the public and to police officers carrying 
     out their duties' (Patten, para: 5.17). Patten, para: 5.17). 
     Patten's proposed steps for normalizing the police dissolving 
     the special branch into criminal investigations, and 
     demilitarising the police in step with hoped-for 
     decommissioning, also met the human rights objectives of the 
     Agreement.
       The Police Bill on this criterion, as in others is almost a 
     parody of the Patten Report. The Bill restricts the new oath, 
     which includes a commitment to human rights to new officers. 
     It incorporates no standards of rights protection higher than 
     that in the European Convention. It places responsibility for 
     a Code of Ethics not with the Policing Board, but with the 
     Chief Constable, who is not obligated to consult the new 
     Human Rights Commission on its content. The Bill explicitly 
     excludes Patten's proposed requirement that an oath of 
     service `respect the traditions and beliefs' of people. The 
     Policing Board cannot inquire into past police misconduct, 
     and the Secretary of State is empowered to prevent the 
     Ombudsman from so doing.
       This was a sixth criterion that Patten had a meet; the 
     Commission's terms of reference included `at all levels'. 
     Accountable decentralisation was proposed through giving 
     directly elected local governments opportunities to influence 
     the policy formulation of the Policing Board though their own 
     District Policing Partnership Boards. The latter would not 
     merely have had the power to question police district 
     commanders but would have the ability to use their own 
     resources to `purchase additional services from the police or 
     statutory agencies, or from the private sector'.
       The Patten Report sensibly also commended significant 
     internal decentralisation within the police, stripping away 
     redundant layers of management to free up district commanders 
     to deliver sensitive policing according to local needs. 
     Better still, Patten recommended matching police internal 
     management units to local government districts.
       The Bill maintains centralisation in three ways. First, it 
     gives power to the Secretary of State that Patten intended 
     should be immediately devolved to the First and Deputy First 
     Ministers. Secondly, the Bill weakens Patten's 
     recommendations regarding decentralisation to district 
     councils and gives the Secretary of State the right to issue 
     instructions to the DPPBs.
       Patten recommended that these be able to contribute up to 
     the `equivalent of a rate of 3p in the pound' to pay for 
     extra policing services to meet their distinctive needs. This 
     provision is not in the Bill. Thirdly, Patten was committed 
     to the establishment of neighborhood policing: that every 
     neighborhood should have a dedicated policing team, that its 
     officers have their names and the names of their neighborhood 
     displayed on their uniforms, and that they should serve 3-5 
     years in the same neighborhood. The Bill contains no such 
     provisions.


                       Democratic accountability

       The seventh and perhaps the most important criterion that 
     Patten and his commissioners had to meet was `democratic 
     accountability'.
       Patten's subject was `policing Northern Ireland' not `the 
     police in Northern Ireland'. Policing should not be the 
     monopoly of a police force, as it is called throughout this 
     Bill, or indeed of a service, as Patten commended. Policing 
     should be organized in a self-governing democratic society by 
     a plurality of agents and organizations, indeed by a network 
     of such organisations. It should not be exclusively the 
     responsibility of a monolithic, centralised, line-
     hierarchy, detached and apart from the rest of society. 
     Ultimate responsibility for the security of persons and 
     property in society should remain with citizens and their 
     representatives. This logic was apparent in the title and 
     proposed organisation of the proposed `Policing Board' 
     that was recommended to replace the present entirely 
     unelected Police Authority which, despite its name, has no 
     authority and even less legitimacy. The Board, as 
     emphasised, was to bring together ten elected politicians 
     drawn in proportion to their representative strength in 
     seats, from the parties that comprise the new Executive 
     with nine appointed members, representative of a range of 
     sectors of civil society, `business, trade unions, 
     voluntary organisations, community groups and the legal 
     profession'.
       The elected members cannot be ministerial office-holders. 
     The unelected members (under a devolved government) were to 
     be appointed by the First and Deputy Ministers.
       The Board was therefore envisaged as broadly 
     representative, in both its elected and unelected members, 
     and at one remove from direct executive power so that it was 
     less likely to become the mere instrument of ministers.
       A similar logic lay behind Patten's proposal to give the 
     Board responsibility for negotiating the annual policing 
     budget with the Northern Ireland Office, or with the 
     appropriate successor body after devolution'.
       The Report, contrary to what scaremongers and the right-
     wing press suggested, was not intended to destroy the 
     operational responsibility of the police, or indeed to party-
     politicise its management. It was intended to let police 
     managers manage, but to hold them, post-factum, to account 
     for their implementation of the Policing Board's general 
     policing policy, and to enhance the audit and investigative 
     capacities of the Board in holding the police to account for 
     their implementation, financial and otherwise, of the Board's 
     policy.
       In the Patten Report's vision the police should become 
     fully part of a self-governing democratic society, 
     transparently accountable to its representatives, rather than 
     a potentially self-serving, unaccountable group of budget 
     maximisers, mission-committed to their own conceptions of 
     good policing. The new service would have `operational 
     responsibility' but would have to justify its uses of its 
     managerial discretion.
       What, by comparison with the Patten Report, is in the Bill? 
     Proposals to strengthen the Secretary of State, to strengthen 
     the powers of the Chief Constable, to weaken the new Policing 
     Board from its inception, and to return policing to the 
     police rather than have policing pressurised by and organized 
     by a network of mutually supportive agencies.
       The Chief Constable has powers of refusal to respond to 
     reasonable requests by the Board. The Secretary of State, not 
     the Board, sets targets and performance indicators. The Board 
     cannot inquire into the past, and is more or less prevented 
     from making into inquiries into police misconduct or 
     incompetence in the future. The Board's role in budgetary 
     planning is, so far as I can tell, downgraded into that of 
     being a lobbying group for the Chief Constable.
       The Board is in fact so weakened that the old Policing 
     Authority has quite correctly condemned the Bill--a response 
     no one would

[[Page S6264]]

     have predicted when the Prime Minister and the Secretary of 
     State welcomed the Patten Report.
       The Ombudsman, the Equality Commission and the Human Rights 
     Commission have no appropriate free-ranging rights of access 
     to policing documentation. The Chief Constable is not even 
     required as a measure of transparency to declare his staff's 
     individual participation in secret societies.


                         meeting the agreement?

       Lastly, the Patten Report and the Bill were supposed to be 
     consistent with the letter and the spirit of the Belfast 
     Agreement. Patten's Report definitely met its terms of 
     reference. The Bill does not. It is incompatible with `parity 
     of esteem', `rigorous impartiality' by the UK government, and 
     the objectives set for policing in the Agreement. The Bill 
     does not in its unamended form represent the promised `new 
     beginning'. It does not `recognise the full and equal 
     legitimacy and worth of the identities, senses of allegiance 
     and ethos of all sections of the community'. It will not 
     produce a `service [that] is effective and efficient, fair 
     and impartial, free from partisan political control; 
     accountable . . . representative of the society it polices . 
     . . which conforms with human rights norms'. It will not 
     encourage `widespread community support' (all quotations from 
     the text of the Agreement). It has been seen through and 
     condemned by the SDLP, the Women's Coalition, the Catholic 
     Church in Ireland, the Committee on the Administration of 
     Justice, the Ombudsman, the existing Police Authority, the 
     Irish Government, and President Clinton, as well as by Sinn 
     Fein. The Bill is a provocation, a fundamental breach of 
     faith, perfidious Britannia in caricature.
       So what does the Bill represent? It represents Old Britain. 
     It has been drafted by the forces of conservatism, for the 
     forces of conservatism. It is a slightly smudged and fudged 
     facsimile of the 1998 Act. Unamended it will ensure that 
     neither the SDLP of Sinn Fein will sit on the Policing Board, 
     or recommend their constituents * * *
                                  ____


                Crucial Role for the Church on Policing

                         (By Fr. Tim Bartlett)

       The Catholic Church has a crucial role to play in the 
     debate about policing. On the one hand it represents the 
     religious tradition of those who are most under-represented 
     in the current provision of policing while at the same time, 
     as a specifically religious institution, it exists and 
     operates outside the confines of constitutional politics. As 
     the trustee of Catholic schools and of numerous youth 
     organisations it is also in a unique position to influence 
     that specific group which will have to be encouraged to join 
     the police service if the huge religious and cultural 
     imbalance within policing is to be redressed, that is--young 
     Catholics.
       The Independent Commission on Policing openly acknowledged 
     this pivotal role of the Church in regard to recruitment. It 
     appealed directly to bishops, priests and school teachers to 
     . . . take steps to remove all discouragements to members of 
     their communities applying to join the police, and make it a 
     priority to encourage them to apply. (15.2)
       While acknowledging that they did have a role to play, the 
     Catholic bishops were equally clear in their response. The 
     responsibility for removing those things which discourage 
     Catholics from joining the police service rests, first and 
     foremost, with the police service itself and not with the 
     Church or community leaders.
       Drawing on their consultations with young Catholics in 
     schools, with school principals and clergy, with lay people 
     and legal professionals, the Catholic bishops were crystal 
     clear about what this would require--an end to the partisan 
     political and cultural domination of policing by one side of 
     the community, greater accountability and a clear commitment 
     to human rights in all aspects of policing. This in turn 
     would require the removal of all those things which are not 
     essential to effective, professional policing but which 
     continue to present a serious obstacle to recruitment among 
     the vast majority of young Catholics. This included those 
     aspects of current policing, such as the name and badge, 
     which require most young Catholics to forego their legitimate 
     political and cultural allegiances and to submit to an ethos 
     and a culture which is not only unfamiliar but also 
     frequently hostile. As one young Catholic put it, ``How would 
     a young Conservative in England feel if, in order to pursue a 
     career in the police, they had to join new Labour?''.
       As a result of their consultations, the bishops concluded, 
     and made clear to the government, that the only way of 
     encouraging a sufficient number of young Catholics to join 
     the police service was to implement the Patten Report in 
     full.
       Many people who wanted no change to the cultural domination 
     of policing by unionism were quick to accuse the bishops of 
     promoting `green agenda', or of joining a `pan-nationalist 
     front', totally ignoring the fact that no one, including the 
     bishops, had suggested that the unionist domination of 
     policing should be exchanged for a nationalist one. What was 
     being proposed was a vision of a pluralist police service for 
     a pluralist society. The issue was not one of religious 
     affiliation as such, but of the right of all citizens to a 
     neutral working environment, to pursue a career in the noble 
     profession of policing without having to subjugate 
     legitimate political, cultural or religious convictions to 
     an exaggerated Unionist ethos which has nothing to do with 
     professional policing.
       Those unionist spokesmen on policing who were disappointed 
     with the Catholic Church's position decided to react by 
     employing an offensive distinction in their public statements 
     between what they now call ``reasonable'' Catholics and 
     ``unreasonable'' Catholics, the latter of course referring to 
     that overwhelming majority of Catholics who do not subscribe 
     to a unionist point of view. Apart from labelling the vast 
     majority of Catholics, including the Catholic bishops as 
     ``unreasonable'', something which affirms the presence of an 
     underlying ethnic superiority within unionism, those who 
     support a continued unionist possession of policing also 
     decided to ``spin'' a number of statistical findings about 
     Catholics and policing.
       The rate of Catholic applications we were told had risen to 
     20 percent since the ceasefires. This was heralded as proof 
     that the main obstacle to Catholic recruitment to the RUC had 
     been the existence of a paramilitary threat. What was 
     conveniently ignored, however, was the fact that a 20 percent 
     application rate was merely a return to the level of 
     application which had existed prior to the troubles. Even 
     then, without the existence of a paramilitary threat for 
     almost 50 years, the maximum level of participation in 
     policing by Catholics for any sustained period was never more 
     than 12 percent.
       We were also told the results of a survey by the Police 
     Authority on issues such as the name and the badge. 
     Interestingly the Police Authority Report itself points out 
     that we must always be cautious about the way in which we 
     interpret and use opinion survey findings (p. 42). Even more 
     interestingly, several important aspects of this survey have 
     been conveniently ignored by those who oppose a pluralist 
     ethos in policing. One is the fact that in regard to the 
     proposed change of name the survey did not ask Catholics 
     whether they agreed or disagreed with a change of name--it 
     simply asked if this would lead to an increase in support for 
     policing. This question was asked, however, in relation to 
     the slightly less contentious issue of the badge. Here, when 
     asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a change of the 
     symbolism associated with the badge over 71% of Catholics 
     agreed that the badge should be changed. This did not include 
     the additional 19% who neither agreed nor disagreed. What 
     this indicated clearly, but which is not admitted by those 
     who published the report, is that there was overwhelming 
     evidence of support in the Catholic community for a change to 
     the symbols and ethos of the RUC.
       The second major weakness of the survey was that it did not 
     focus on the opinions of those who are most relevant to the 
     issue of recruitment. that is--young Catholics--most notably 
     those between 14 and 26 years of age. Principals of 
     Catholic schools, leaders of Catholic youth clubs and 
     clergy who were asked by the bishops about these issues 
     were very clear about the opinion of this age group, in 
     regard to the sectarian bias of the RUC and the need to 
     change the name and symbols if the recruitment of young 
     Catholics in sufficient numbers was to become a 
     possibility. The Police Authority survey did not take 
     account of the views of this important group.
       At the end of the day the proverbial ``dogs in the street'' 
     know that the most serious obstacle to the recruitment of 
     young Catholics remains the unapologetic and ongoing effort 
     of the unionist community to dominate policing and to 
     obstruct the pluralist and community based ethos proposed by 
     the Patten Report. The failure of the secretary of state to 
     remain faithful to key elements of the Patten Report in the 
     current Policing Bill and his willingness to subject a 
     fundamental issue of cycle justice--the right to 
     representative policing--to the ``spin and win'' of politics, 
     has provided one of the greatest ``obstacles to 
     encouragement'' for young Catholics to have emerged in recent 
     years. In this context any appeal to the Catholic Church to 
     `. . . make it a priority to encourage Catholics to join' is 
     unlikely to be taken up by Church leaders. If the government 
     and the unionist community does have the recruitment of young 
     Catholics as a priority, what hope has the Catholic Church?
       If we are to achieve the new beginning to policing made 
     possible through the independent adjudication of this issue 
     by an independent commission, then it is time for the 
     unionist tradition to let go of its cultural possession of 
     policing and to acknowledge the real pain, suffering and 
     sectarian bias which many Catholics have experienced, and 
     continue to experience, at the hands of the RUC. It is time 
     for the British government to acknowledge that most Catholics 
     have been ``locked out'' of policing for the last 80 years 
     because of their legitimately held political and cultural 
     beliefs and that in a pluralist society this cannot continue 
     to be the case.
       The Catholic Church as gone to great lengths, in recent 
     months, to pay tribute to the RUC and to acknowledge the 
     great price that RUC officers have paid in the effort to 
     maintain stability and peace. Apart from their various public 
     statements, the decision by Archbishop Brady to attend the 
     George Cross award ceremony was a courageous and public 
     acknowledgement by the Catholic bishops that the future of 
     policing, indeed of our whole society depends on giving due 
     recognition to the suffering and sacrifice which has been 
     part of our collective past. What a pity then that, as yet, 
     Protestant Church leaders, unionist politicians and the 
     British government in the current Policing Bill,

[[Page S6265]]

     have not found it possible to offer any similar reassurance 
     to the Catholic community about the commitment of the 
     Unionist-British tradition to the ``new beginning to 
     policing'' promised by the Belfast agreement. Such 
     reassurances, from such voices, while surprising, would 
     certainly be a welcome change.

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators 
Kennedy, Dodd, and Mack in introducing this resolution on police reform 
in Northern Ireland.
  Police reform is necessary in Northern Ireland to guarantee fairness 
and to advance the peace process.
  Our resolution expresses the Sense of the Senate that the full and 
speedy implementation of the Patten Commission's recommendations on 
reforming the police service in Northern Ireland holds the promise of 
ensuring that the police service will gain the support of both 
nationalists and unionists. It calls on the British Government to fully 
and faithfully implement the recommendations included in the Patten 
Commission report. It also commends the parties to the Good Friday 
Agreement for progress to date in implementing all aspects of the Good 
Friday Agreement and urges them to move expeditiously to complete the 
implementation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that documents which raise 
concerns about police reform legislation be included at the end of my 
remarks. I urge my colleagues to approve this resolution.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 Lawyers Committee


                                             for Human Rights,

                                      New York, NY, June 16, 2000.

     Re Northern Ireland police bill.

     The Rt. Hon. Peter Mandelson,
     Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland 
         Office, Stormont Castle, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
       Dear Mr. Mandelson: We are writing to you to convey our 
     continued concern about the proposed Northern Ireland Police 
     Bill. We recognise the difficult choices you face in 
     implementing a comprehensive program of police reform in 
     Northern Ireland. We are aware also of the deep sensitivities 
     surrounding the police issues that cut across religious, 
     racial and political lines. We commend you for the time and 
     attention you have directed to this highly important subject. 
     It is precisely because it is so important that we write to 
     you again following our letter on May 26, to register 
     concerns that arise out of the debate at the Second Reading 
     of the Bill.
       At the Reading, you emphasised the need to concentrate on 
     ``detail'' and to move away from ``rhetoric'' and 
     ``hyperbole''. We agree, and recognise that this is a 
     critical time to ensure that the legislation accurately 
     embodies the recommendations made by the Patten Commission. 
     However, we take strong exception to your assertion that the 
     ``spirit as well as the letter'' of the Bill you are 
     proposing fully implements the Patten Commission's 
     recommendations. To the contrary, we are greatly concerned 
     that the proposed legislation fails to implement key elements 
     of the Patten Commission's Recommendations especially 
     relating to Police accountability.


                  police ombudsman and policing board

       In particular, the legislation significantly curtails the 
     powers of the Police Ombudsman and the Policing Board. In 
     fact, as it now stands, the legislation appears to undermine 
     the very mechanism that the Patten Commission envisaged as 
     necessary for holding the police force and its Chief 
     accountable.
     a. Police Ombudsman
       With respect to the power of the Police Ombudsman, the 
     Patten Commission recommended that:
       ``[The Ombudsman] should exercise the power to initiate 
     inquiries and investigations even if no specific complaint 
     has been received . . . (and) should exercise the right to 
     investigate and comment on police policies and practices, 
     where these are perceived to give rise to difficulties.'' 
     (Recommendation 38).
       In rejecting both the spirit and the letter of this 
     recommendation, you indicated at the Second Reading that you 
     believed you were right ``to resist the suggestion that the 
     Ombudsman should also have powers to review the policies and 
     practices of the police service.'' You proposed, instead, 
     that she would be able to raise wider issues only in the 
     course of investigating individual complaints.
       The government's proposal, if accepted, will create a 
     system that would allow the Ombudsman to only address 
     patterns of misconduct by chance. Such an inquiry would only 
     be triggered if a person happens to come forward with an 
     individual complaint that also reveals a wider issue. This is 
     contrary to the Patten Commission's recommendation, and does 
     not seem the most effective way to monitoring police 
     adherence to human rights standards.
     b. Policing Board
       In proposing the creation of a police board, the Patten 
     Commission recognised that the Board could only be effective 
     if it were independent and powerful. (see Patten Report, 
     paragraph 6.23). The Commission proposed that the Policing 
     Board have power to initiate inquiries so that it had an 
     alternative mechanisms to ensure accountability, and not be 
     limited to the extreme remedy of calling upon the Chief 
     Constable to retire.
       In rejecting this recommendation, the proposed legislation 
     bars the Policing Board's ability to inquire into past 
     misconduct and gives the Secretary of State the power to 
     prevent the Ombudsman from doing so. Although we are pleased 
     that you have indicated your initial proposal has ``probably 
     gone too far in the limitations'' imposed on the Policing 
     Board's powers, we are concerned that you appear to still 
     believe that the power to initiate inquiries is `extreme'.
       We urge you to ensure that the legislation reflects the 
     Patten Commission's major emphasis on the centrality of human 
     rights by granting these monitoring bodies the power proposed 
     by the Commission.


                         oversight commissioner

       The new Oversight Commissioner, Mr. Constantine, will have 
     a critically important role in implementing police reform and 
     restructuring. The Patten Commission's Report proposed wide 
     powers and latitude for the Oversight Commissioner. We are 
     pleased that the Commissioner's terms of reference will have 
     a statutory basis, and we look forward to studying the 
     amendments brought forward on this point. We consider it 
     vital that the Oversight Commissioner's mandate relates to 
     his responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the 
     breadth of change envisaged in the Patten Commission's 
     recommendations, and not simply the Implementation Plan. From 
     a cursory reading of the Implementation Plan, it is clear 
     that it rests considerable discretion in the Chief Constable, 
     a constraint that is at odds with the overall approach 
     envisioned by the Patten Report. We strongly urge that the 
     Commission's written terms of reference give him the broadest 
     scope, latitude and independence possible to enable him to 
     effectively carry out his essential mission.


                         human rights standards

       Finally, we are concerned that the Bill fails to establish 
     adequate means for incorporating a human rights culture into 
     policing in Northern Ireland. Members of the Patten 
     Commission understood that international norms are important 
     safeguards to both ``the public and to the police officers 
     carrying out their duties.'' (Recommendation 5.17). The 
     Police Bill should reflect this principle at every 
     opportunity--in defining the function of the Police Board, 
     the role of the police, and organising principles of the Code 
     of Ethics.
       Official accountability is an essential key to building 
     public confidence in a new policing institution in Northern 
     Ireland. I am sure you can appreciate that without this 
     public credibility, all reform efforts will be seriously 
     undermined. You have been presented with a unique opportunity 
     to institute effective and lasting reforms within the police 
     in Northern Ireland which puts a premium on respect for human 
     rights. If successful, the Northern Ireland experience could 
     become a model for other countries around the world embarking 
     on their own path to reform. But success must be built on a 
     legislative framework that ensures the fullest official 
     accountability.
       We will continue to closely monitor the development of this 
     legislation. We look forward to hearing from you and would 
     welcome the opportunity to meet with you or your 
     representatives to discuss these issues further.
           Respectfully,
                                                   Michael Posner,
     Executive Director.
                                  ____


       Police Bill Looks Set to Render Policing Board Ineffective

       The Police Authority today expressed ``deep concern'' about 
     the new Police (NI) Bill 2000.
       Authority Chairman Pat Armstrong stressed that although the 
     body was reluctant to criticise new legislation it felt it 
     had no alternative.
       ``The Police Authority hoped to have been able to give the 
     same broad welcome to this Bill which it gave to the Patten 
     report when it was published.
       ``We want to see policing in Northern Ireland move forward. 
     Although the main public focus on this legislation so far has 
     been about the name and symbols of the police service, we 
     feel that damaging limitations on the powers of the new 
     Policing Board represent the real meat of the debate.
       ``The Police Authority has worked vigilantly for the last 
     thirty years to ensure police accountability to the people of 
     Northern Ireland and to protect the police service from 
     political intervention. In doing so we have made no secret of 
     the fact that our powers have always been severely limited by 
     the restrictions imposed on us by successive Secretaries of 
     State.
       ``We therefore welcomed Patten's proposal and believed it 
     would at long last create a strong, independent and powerful 
     Policing Board for the community at large.
       ``Worryingly, the early signs in this Bill are that the 
     Secretary of State is trying to curb the powers of this new 
     Board and substantially weaken its credibility before it even 
     gets off the ground.
       ``While we haven't had the opportunity to analyze the full 
     impact of the Secretary of

[[Page S6266]]

     State's proposals, it seems that if the legislation goes 
     through as it stands, the new Policing Board could actually 
     have less power then the current Police Authority--a 
     situation we find ludicrous and totally unacceptable.''
       ``Police planning and financial control are two key areas 
     where it seems the new Board will have a reduced role, while 
     the Secretary of State enjoys greater influence.
       ``And where the Board was supposed to get new powers, it 
     seems rigid restrictions have been imposed. On the power to 
     initiate enquiries for example, it is difficult to see how 
     the Board could ever satisfy all the conditions required by 
     the Secretary of State.''
       ``This is not the first time that Government has attempted 
     to control policing in Northern Ireland. In our original 
     submission to the Patten Commission we catalogued consistent 
     attempts by the Government over the years to suppress the 
     powers of the Police Authority.
       ``Successive Authorities have resisted such attempts by 
     Government to directly influence policing and we will 
     continue to do so in guarding against any weakening of the 
     powers envisaged by Patten for the new Policing Board. The 
     Patten report itself stated, `we do not believe the Secretary 
     of State . . . should ever appear to have the power to direct 
     the police.'--this obviously signalled a clear intention on 
     the Commission's part to curtail the powers of Government--
     not enhance them as the proposed legislation seems set to 
     do.''
       Mr. Armstrong however said the Authority supported much of 
     the legislation including the apparent safeguards put in 
     place to prevent District Policing Partnerships raising money 
     for `freelance' police services. He added that more time 
     would be needed to examine all the issues in detail.
       The Authority will shortly publish an in-depth analysis of 
     the Government's proposed Patten legislation and 
     implementation plan.

                          ____________________