SDLP leader Mark Durkan has issued his starkest warning yet that British government proposals for the operation of community restorative justice (CRJ) schemes in the North could result in "state-paid vigilantism".
He spelt out his extraordinary warning last night in a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair a week before the expected publication of final guidelines for the management of the scheme, which the SDLP leader fears "may fundamentally damage the rule of law".
One of the aims of the scheme is to bring together victim and offender so that the offender recognises the harm done and agrees to make amends.
Following the publication of draft guidelines last December, the emerging British proposals have also been opposed to varying degrees by the Democratic Unionist Party and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, as well as by the Conservative Party at Westminster.
Mr Durkan has also written expressing his concerns to Conservative leader David Cameron, ahead of their scheduled meeting at the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The meeting with Mr Durkan had originally been planned as one in a series between the recently elected Conservative leader and the leaders of the main Northern Ireland parties, but is now set to be dominated by an issue which has also aroused the anxieties of groups such as Foyle Women's Aid and the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre.
Ahead of his meeting with Mr Cameron, the SDLP leader will also host a briefing for London journalists at which he will be accompanied by the sisters of the late Mr Robert McCartney, who have stated that some of their brother's killers are involved with "community-based" groups of the kind which the British government seeks to regulate and finance.
In his letter to Mr Blair, Mr Durkan restated his view that restorative justice is in principle "a good idea". However, signalling an escalation of his opposition to the British plan, Mr Durkan told Mr Blair some CRJ groups "are being established by Sinn Féin and the provisional movement as part of their agenda for 'alternative policing' " arrangements in the North.
And he registered his alarm that such groups could be funded:
• before Sinn Féin agrees to support policing and the rule of law;
• even as the culture of paramilitary control persists in some communities;
• without adequate arrangements for training and inspection;
• without a proper legislative framework;
• and even though those involved may have been convicted before the Good Friday agreement of paramilitary-related crimes such as punishment beatings.
"We are profoundly concerned that the British government's proposals on CRJ groups may provide for state-paid paramilitary vigilantes with few safeguards and little accountability," Mr Durkan told Mr Blair: "We are concerned that, despite some reassurances, the Government's approach may fundamentally damage the rule of law and jeopardise the safety of the most vulnerable in our society."