Anyone who suggest's the rule of law in the UK and Ireland is impartial is either a fool, liar or charlatan.

I felt angry and bitterly disappointed on reading Martina Anderson’s article in An Phoblacht, in which  she set out her reasoning for Sinn Fein's support for the transfer of policing and justice from London to the Stormont administration.  Martina, inexplicably claimed the leniency of the current UK judicial system, especially  when it comes to sentencing, is the main reason why it was imperative for SF’s to gain the transfer of police and justice to the Stormont administration. 

To claim as Martina did, that British judges when sentencing only give criminals "a slap on the wrists," is not only ridiculous but just plain wrong, as it panders to the reactionary herd and white-washes a judicial system which is corrupt to the core. The UK system of justice is the most draconian in Western Europe, sentencing more people to terms of imprisonment than almost all other EU nation's.

The last thing the north of Ireland needs is for Martina Anderson and her Sinn Fein colleagues to morph into the equivalent of the English home counties hang them and flog them brigade. What is desperately needed in the six counties is not harsher sentences, but some blue sky thinking about how, and by whom justice is administered and what purpose it serves.

For an Irish republican of all people to call for tougher sentencing, borders on the surreal, for no group of political activist have experienced more, the gross inequality that is writ large throughout the UK judicial system and yes Martina, no matter how much you try to paint it green, the judicial system you are so keen to help administer will still be a part of the UK judicial system.

One does not have to be a penologist to understand the overwhelming majority of those who appear before the courts come from the same class as SF’s core support base, i e the working class. This is not because we are any more prone to be criminally minded than other classes, far from it in fact, it is due to the gross inequality which exists in the society we live in. To write this does not make me a bleeding heart liberal who believes society should not be protected against those who prey on it, but someone who believes the rule of law should mean just that, one rule for all which is enforced impartially.

Anyone who suggest's the rule of law in the UK and Ireland is impartial is either a fool, liar or charlatan. In the UK and Ireland we have had of late, a glut of scandals which have exposed there is one law for the rich and powerful and one for the rest. Take the recent expenses scandal which embroiled Westminster parliamentarians, it created a great deal of media froth, but to date only four minor politicians have been charged with a criminal offense, compare that with the numbers of working class people who are charged with defrauding the public purse.(Benefit fraud) 

The scandal which saw the UK and Irish banking system all but collapse is even worse, for despite these reptiles sending the world into a deep economic depression and in the process ruining millions of peoples lives, not one individual has been charged with a criminal offense, indeed it is worse than that, as the ‘bankers’ are back to their old tricks. 

I could add in the weapons multi-national BAE systems corruption scandal which centered on the Al-Yamamah arms deal, and which the then prime minister, Tony Blair,  ordered the Serious Fraud Office to cease investigating when it became clear senior British politicians and businessmen, along with predatory and corrupt Saudi princes like ‘prince’ Bandar had their grubby hands deep in corrupt practices. 

Not one of these Zoot suited crooks will find themselves in the Dock of a court, nor will there Irish equivalent, as Fintan O’Toole wrote in his excellent book Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger. 

“The culture of corruption so shameless and spectacular that it makes Dublin look like Kabul. The former Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles Haughey stole €250,000 from a fund set up to pay for a liver transplant for one of his closest friends. Last year, the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank resigned when it emerged that he had €84m in loans from his own bank, a sum concealed by an annual cooking of the books. Bribery, tax evasion and false evidence under oath have not simply gone unpunished; the very idea of penalizing the culprits is viewed by the governing elite as unsporting or even unpatriotic.”

The mockney Stormont administration to which Martina Anderson belongs is no slouch when it comes to corruption and its refusal to enforce the law, as was revealed in a recent TV documentary which exposed the First ‘Ministers’ wife as an avaricious and licentious criminal and her husband a man who either turned a blind eye or countenanced her corrupt practices. Whatever the truth, between them they drew over £500,0000 a year from the British exchequer and instead of ending up in a court of law, Iris Robinson is spending her time re-charging her batteries in a private 'hospital.'

If you have managed to keep down your breakfast after reading Ms Anderson's hypocritical call for tougher sentencing, perhaps we should look to the future.The real challenge is not to send more people to prison by introducing a system of harsher sentences, any fool can do that as witnessed by countless British and Irish governments. The problem is the right people are not coming before the courts and in the main the wrong people are filling our jails.

In the short term what is needed is to create a system of rehabilitation, which puts an end to the revolving door strategy so beloved by the politicians and multi-national corporations which run much of the UK prison system. A system from which after being released, thirty-nine per cent of prisoners returned to crime and eventually jail. Which is a shocking statistic by anyones standards, the more so when you consider the UK courts send more defendants to jail than most EU nations. 

What you have here is a custodial system of stack them in fast, and stack them high and let them back on the street as the same damaged goods they were when they first went in. It is hardly surprising many ill educated youngsters have come to believe it is fine to commit crimes when the political and business elites break the law without censor.

In the long term we must look for ways to radicalize the current Irish and British judicial systems. However for that to occur we will need to work towards a political earthquake. What we do not need is politicians like Martina Anderson who claim to be progressive, aping reactionary trash and demanding we send more working class people to jail.

She would do well to leave the reactionary tripe and hypocritical talk of the rule of law where it belongs in the gutter and instead ponder the quote from Juan Garcia Oliver, a former Minister of Justice in the 1930‘s Spanish Republican government. Blue sky thinking is what we need, a system of law which actually puts those who commit major crimes behind bars, but also helps those who have fallen due to circumstance to rehabilitate themselves and become productive members of society. 

"Justice must be burning hot, justice must be alive, justice cannot be restricted within the bounds of a profession. It is not that we definitely despise books and lawyers. But the fact is that there were [sic] to many lawyers. 

When relations between men become what they should be, there will be no need to kill and steal. for the first time let us admit, here in Spain, that the common criminal is not an enemy of society. he is more likely to be a victim of society. Who is there who says he dare not go out and steal if driven to it to feed his children and himself. 

Do not think I am making a defense of robbery. but man, after all, does not proceed from God, but from the cave, from the beast. Justice I firmly believe, is so subtle a thing that to interpret it, one has only need of a heart.”

Juan Garcia Oliver.