The State we are in
In 1998 here in the north we were promised a ‘new beginning’. The Good Friday Agreement voted for by the people was to bring that ‘new beginning’. The agreement promised ‘measures compatible with a normal peaceful society’ and an era in which justice would be done and would be seen to be done.
Nearly 15 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement Marian Price McGlinchey is the victim of administrative internment. Marian was bailed by the courts but sent to prison at the whim of the British Secretary of State who alleged Marian had breached the terms of the licence she was released from prison on in 1980. This licence was overridden by the Royal Prerogative of Mercy (pardon) Marian received shortly after her release.
When this point was raised the authorities claimed the pardon document was either lost or shredded in 2010. Suprisingly, the British government claim to know the content of the missing pardon yet have failed to provide evidence to substantiate their claim. So how can the authorities make a decision based upon the contents of a document they have not seen? Oddly enough a number of copies of the 13th century Magna Carta still exist yet we are expected to believe that a royal pardon issued in 1980 is missing from government archives with no other copy to be found. This is the only pardon in the history of British Monarchy to go missing.
Since her arrest in May 2011 Marian has been held in isolation and as a result is very ill. It would seem that the Northern Ireland Assembly is cospiring with the British govenment to intern Marian and others using methods that contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. The Good Friday Agreement was to have instilled a hope of a ‘normal peaceful society’ yet any reasonable and rational person would surely agree that internent has no place in any ‘normal peaceful society’, or in any society that claims to promote democracy.
In closing, I would like to draw the attention of those elected to public office to the very poignant words of the American author Mark Twain “The government is merely a servant, merely a temporary servant.”
