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Criminal Justice

Northern Ireland has one of the most forward looking criminal justice systems in Europe after committing to a radical modernisation programme.

Putting human rights and equality at its core, Northern Ireland’s criminal justice system has innovative crime preventive packages, improved services and support for victims and witnesses, and a number of new, independent institutions including the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments (NIJAC) Commission, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) and the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).

The origin for change flowed from the Belfast Agreement which agreed a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, the first of its kind in 30 years. The Criminal Justice Review made 294 recommendations for change across the system.

The Government accepted almost all the Review recommendations and published its Implementation Plan and Updated Implementation Plan to set out how it would implement them.  It also introduced the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 and the Justice (Northern Ireland Act) 2004 to give many of them legislative effect.

To complement the strong commitment of all the criminal justice agencies to the fundamental reform and improvement of the system, independent checks and balances were put in place to ensure the system is both transparent and accountable.

The Justice Oversight Commissioner, Lord Clyde has been proactive and insightful in fulfilling his oversight function.  He concluded in his sixth and last report, “The enormous work involved in the implementation of these 294 recommendations is substantially completed”.

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