The Supreme Court ruling on Gerry Adams was not a surprise

In The Politics of the Judiciary, Griffith, J.A.G. (1991, 4th edn), London, Fontana, it is argued that the judiciary serves as an ‘essential part of the system of government in underpinning the stability of that system and as protecting the system from attack by resisting attempts to change it’.
Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

“In other words, judges act as a ‘tool’ of government, ...” (Controlling Crime, page 124, Eugene McLaughlin and John Muncie, Sage Publications).

The back breaking bending over backwards of the Supreme Court ruling that Gerry Adams’ internment had been null and void because the secretary of state had not personally signed the authorisation papers of internment should not be a surprise, given that in Great Hatred, Little Room (Jonathan Powell, Vintage Books), page 206,207) it is divulged in the words of Jonathan Powell: “I took with me a draft IRA statement saying the war was over, the IRA would stand down and that they would not engage in para-military activities, training, targeting, and acquisition and development of arms or weapons. Adams agreed to consider the text ...”

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Undoubtedly, Gerry Adams was a major player in the process whereby Northern Ireland continues to remain within the United Kingdom, and it is politically expedient that the British political establishment should continue to ‘make a friend of their enemy’, in which the Supreme Court may be perceived as having acted as a ‘tool of government’.

John Milton, Portadown