Alliance Party won’t forward justice post names
The Alliance Party has said it won’t put forward any names for consideration as minister of justice without agreement on other key issues first.
First and deputy first ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness had asked MLAs to put forward potential candidates for the post by next Friday.
But in a leaked letter, Alliance says there must first be agreement on a policy programme for the justice post.
It also wants real progress on a community relations strategy.
On Friday, the first minister and DUP leader, Mr Robinson, rejected Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein’s Christmas deadline to resolve their differences on policing and justice.
Mr McGuinness, who is deputy first minister, warned of an impending “full-blown crisis” at Stormont.
The two parties have been arguing for months over the transfer of justice and policing powers from London to Belfast.
Mr Robinson said the issues “needed to be properly dealt with” before the powers could be devolved to Stormont.
“From the point of view of the whole community, it would be madness for us to simply dash to the line for the sake of some date set by Sinn Fein alone without getting the outstanding issues resolved – you deal with the issues,” he said.
He was responding to earlier comments by Mr McGuinness who said: “If we don’t get a date for transfer of power of policing and justice before Christmas to be effective in the new year, I do think we are in an unsustainable position.”
