Justice and Cutting Stormont's Departments
MLAs will debate the Assembly and Executive Review Committee's latest report on policing and justice next Tuesday. The TUV's Jim Allister has seen a draft and remains unhappy that the Judicial Appointments Commission will be the responsibility of the OFMDFM, thus in his view still linking Martin McGuinness to the appointment of judges. DUP sources play this down, pointing out that there is not due to be any re-appointments to the Commission until 2012.
The report - as Mr Allister points out - still leaves the question of whether a future Justice Minister should be in or out of the Executive undecided. At one stage the DUP was against making the minister an Executive member for fear that their Executive colleagues could use the St. Andrews rules to curtail their independence (code for Sinn Fein using its power over justice issues). So this is one yet to be clarified.
I'm told the Secretary of State has turned down a request from the Committee for a copy of the protocols he is working on with the OFMDFM over what access a new minister might have to sensitive security matters.
Atlhough the First and Deputy First Ministers say there should be no undue delay in devolving justice we are still none the wiser on when this might happen. One source suggested to me today that November might be a possibility.
Adding a Justice department will once again open up the whole question of whether, with 14 ministers and 11 departments, we already have too many departments at Stormont. It's understood the Assembly Executive and Review Committee has agreed to consider this and a DUP motion in favour of reducing the number of departments has been tabled for debate on Monday.
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