Interesting evidence from academics in support of SPAD Bill
23 January 2013
NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY
Committee for Finance and Personnel
Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill:
Briefing from Dr Máire Braniff and Dr Cillian McGrattan
16 January 2013
The Deputy Chairperson:
We have an evidence session with two academic witnesses. This session will be recorded by Hansard, so I remind you to switch off any electronic devices. The relevant documents are contained in your Bill folder. The witnesses are Dr Máire Braniff of the University of Ulster and Dr Cillian McGrattan of Swansea University. I welcome you both to the meeting and ask you to make an opening statement.Dr Máire Braniff:
Thank you, Chairman and members, for giving us the opportunity to speak to you in this forum. We sent our submission late in the day, so we greatly appreciate you taking the opportunity to invite us here today. We hope that you have had the chance to read it. We appreciate that you have heard from legal scholars, victims and victims' representatives, and ex-paramilitary prisoners and their representatives. Our submission is primarily drawn from the perspective of political science.Much has been said in a very nebulous way about the politics of this Bill. In our reading, this is often referred to party politics, but we hope to speak to the more general political principles that are inherent in this debate. Our point of departure in thinking about this Bill was that it seemed to encapsulate a central dilemma of political thought and democracy, namely that good government should be simultaneously for and of the people. In tackling this problem at the end of the 18th century, James Madison held that, unless government got the balance right, it could end up oppressing a section of its people. This present case reflected that balancing act, for the problem that the Bill seeks to address arose from the belief that Sinn Féin had, in acting for one section of the people
— its own support base or party personnel — simultaneously oppressed others, namely that section of society that has been marginalised or rendered almost voiceless by the experience of political violence or terror.In her evidence to this Committee, Ann Travers spoke eloquently and movingly about how this occurred. Her hearing of the appointment of Mary McArdle as special adviser caused her to relive the trauma that has, in her words, been haunting her for almost 30 years. Ann Travers' recounting of this echoes research in political science about the relationship between politics and trauma. Jenny Edkins, for example, argues that trauma involves more than just a feeling of powerlessness and that it incorporates a betrayal of trust:
"What we call trauma takes place when the very powers that we are convinced will protect us and give us security become our tormentors: when the community of which we considered ourselves members turns against us and is no longer a source of refuge but a site of danger."
That is a problem that Northern Ireland has to deal with. After all, prisoners were given early release under the 1998 agreement, and much has been said in the Committee about the requirement that the state has to try to rehabilitate and reintegrate those people. However, the Good Friday Agreement also stated that the best way to honour the dead is to:
"dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust ... of all."
We see the Bill as a belated attempt to honour that pledge. We would argue that, focusing on its potential and the responsibility that you, as legislators, have towards us, the citizens, the tired and circular debate over conflicting rights can be surmounted. As such, we defend the Bill for the following political reasons.
First, the Bill redresses an ongoing sidelining of victims. That sidelining takes many forms, from the idea that everyone was in some way responsible and, therefore, no one is culpable, to the idea that the onus for truth recovery lies within the British and Irish Governments, thereby ignoring the fact that the IRA was to blame for the vast majority of the killings. Secondly, the Bill sends out a signal that reconciliation is not just about moving forward but that it also has a historical dimension. The Bill has been dismissed as divisive and anti-peace process. We contend that that is only true if we equatepeace to amnesia and if we equate justice to
[Inaudible.] Finally, the Bill represents a first step towardsMadison's advice: either the Government can be trusted to govern for everyone or else it is made to.The Bill is saying that political murder was indefensible. That message is shared across many political parties. People from diverse backgrounds, such as Austin Currie to John Alderdice and William Craig to John Hume, have all argued that violence was not worth a single life. We believe that politicians should grasp the opportunity to say to future generations that violence is not reasonable or an ethical option, and politics and democracy can be seen to work.
The Bill is a test, therefore, of Northern Irish governance, Northern Irish democracy and the kind of values that we, in Northern Ireland, are seen to cherish.
