Comparative law and justice/Northern Ireland

Part of the Comparative law and justice Wikiversity Project

Subject classification: this is a comparative law and justice resource.

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UK map of Northern Ireland

Basic Information

In 1999, the Scottish parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland were established. Due to Wrangling over the peace process, the latter was suspended until May 2007, but in March 2010, devotion was fully completed. Northern Ireland neighbors are the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain which lies across the Irish Sea. 50.1 percent of its resident claimed themselves protestant and 38.4 Roman Catholic in 1991..

Ethnicity

The key ethnic groups of North Ireland are: (a) White(99.15%), Northern Ireland born: 91.0%, Other UK or Republic of Ireland born 7.2%,Irish Traveller 0.10%. (b) Asian: Chinese 0.25%,Indian 0.09%,Pakistani 0.04%, Bangladeshi 0.01%,Other Asian 0.01%. (c)Black: Black African 0.03%,Black Caribbean 0.02%,Other Black 0.02%, (d) Other ethnic groups0.08%, (e)Mixed 0.20%.. These ethnic groups came from different parts of the world. as the other groups, they primarily came from Eastern Europe. The Blacks and African Caribbeans migrated to Northern Ireland; there were two great people amongst them that came out of the circle of just a resident. They were named George Thompson and Louis Scott. The Chinese were the first to arrive in huge number; the Chinese made the Cantonese Chinese to be the second most spoke first language in the region after English.They arrived in the 1960s. The Mixed group population is spread all around Northern Ireland, and there is no specific place to point to as the only area where they reside. In Newry and Armagh the largest group of Irish Travellers reside there, while majority of the groups lived in West Tyrone, Mid Ulster, Belfast West and Foyle.. The Indians mostly live in Belfast South and Foyle. The Indians opened business in these areas and operated a textiles industries. The Pakistanis and the rest of the other groups operated in retailing of clothes. The Pakistanis ended up in Northern before the 1960.Some of them came as doctors and as refugees from World war 2. Presently,the poverty rate amongst the British Pakistanis are very high. The Indians in Northern Ireland ended up there in search of jobs and a program which send lots of Indian students all around the globe to study..

Languages

There are different kinds of languages spoken in Northern Ireland. they are: English, almost 100% pf the population in Northern Ireland speaks this language. Therefore it is the official language spoken; Sign language, the British Sign language is the most commonly used amongst the deaf and dumb in Northern Ireland;other languages, Eastern Europeans language which is the Polish language is becoming common;Ulster Scots,2 % speak it;Irish language is the native language of the entire land. Surprisingly, only 4.7% of the entire population speaks Irish. Therefore, the English language is more predominant, than the Irish language in Northern Ireland.

Demographic characteristics

Beginning in the month of July 2010, North Ireland had a population of about 62,348,447 people residing in it. As of 2010, the female population in Northern Ireland was 308,456,03, while the male population was 302,676,02.

Geographical Information

Northern Ireland is known to have a total land mass of 243,610 sq km, and world region in Europe. The climate currently is moderate that is followed by predominant wind southwest winds that go over the North Atlantic Current. It is located between the North Sea and Northwest of France.

Economic Development, Health, and Education

Northern Ireland has a large economy growth in both social and welfare programs and in trading on the lane of economy development. With minimal labor force, it is known for producing more and more food. Large coal, natural gas, and oil resources are know to be situated on its foundation..In 2005, the UK became a net importer of energy but unfortunately, there was a huge decline in its oil and natural gas reserves.. The UK,as any other country Britain was greatly affected when the global financial crisis hit the economy hard in 2008.As the result of this, the global economic slowdown compounded Britain's economic worries, such as: sharply declining home price, and high consumer debt. In the later half of 2007, the economic later experienced a recession. The financial market was later stabilized following a number of measure to stimulate the economy which was implemented by the Brown government. Measures that were taken into action were: nationalizing parts of the banking system, cutting taxes, suspending public sector borrowing rules, and moving forward public spending on capital projects.. In 2010,for the entire UK,The GDP (purchasing power parity)was estimated to be $2.189 trillion dollars..$2.259 trillion dollars was estimated as their GDP (official exchange rate.Pertaining to the issue of comparing the growth of UK to the rest of the world, it came as 163 in 2010. Northern Ireland has a labor force of about 31.45 million. Interestingly, the unemployment rate for the year of 2010 was 7.9%.

Relating to the issue of health, UK has a death rate of about 9.33 deaths/1,000 population in the month of July 2010 as recorded by the CIA fact book. The average life expectancy in UK is 77.84 years for males and 82.11 years for females. The infant mortality rate in 4.69 deaths for every 1,000 births. This makes Northern Ireland 191 in the world for its infant mortality rate.In general,the UK nations are relatively healthy countries. Lastly, UK has an estimate of 0.2 % of its' people who are living with HIV/AIDS.

Crime Rates and Public Opinion

Since the Good Friday Agreement,Crimes have been uncommon in Northern Ireland. In the earliest days,Northern Ireland was not known of having petty crimes but since the Good Friday Agreement, petty crimes have been the majority crimes being committed in Northern Ireland. in the whole of Western Europe, statistics have shown that Northern Ireland has the lowest level of crime.. The typical crimes are: robbery, murder,racketeering, disorder, burglary, joyriding, terrorism and assault.. The reported homicide rate in Northern Ireland in 2005 has been estimated to be 1.5;the reported rates of other key crimes, like theft, sexual assault, etc is known to be 1,407.50 in 2005 and 2006. It isn't clear if there is any problem with Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom that there is a reporting problem in recording crimes.. My data was collected from multiple sources, which include: Wikipedia, United Nations Office on Drugs and crimes, and a Pdf doc about reporting of crimes.

public opinion on crime

In Northern Ireland,public opinion on crime, punishment, and the criminal justice system is very welcoming. Research shows that residents of Northern Ireland are free to take surveys on issues about crimes that interest them. A television survey conducted in November 2009 showed that 70% of the people favored restoring the death penalty for at least certain crimes: armed robbery, rape, paedophilia, terrorism, adult murder, child murder, child rape, treason, child abuse, or kidnapping. 51% of the people of Northern Ireland chose capital punishment for only adult murderers.

Family of Law

Looking at The University of Ottawa World Legal Systems Research Group’s map of national legal systems, i found it so fascinating that the rest of the countries of which Northern Ireland and few other Europeans countries are neighbors of, are all Civil law countries,whereas Northern Ireland is one of the few country that is a common law country.

Governance

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Elections

Under the administrative division of UK, Northern Ireland is known to have a monarchy government which is hereditary; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition usually is the prime minister. The House of Lords consist of bicameral Parliament(741 seats; consisting of approximately 625 life peers, 91 hereditary peers, and 25 clergy - as of 15 December 2010) and House of Commons. (650 seats since 2010 elections; members elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms unless the House is dissolved earlier) elections: House of Lords - no elections (note - in 1999, as provided by the House of Lords Act, elections were held in the House of Lords to determine the 92 hereditary peers who would remain there; elections are held only as vacancies in the hereditary peerage arise); election results: House of Commons - percent of vote by party - Conservative thirty-six point one percent, Labor twenty-nine percent, Liberal Democrats twenty-three percent, and eleven point nine percent for others; seats by party Labor 258, Liberal Democrat 57, Conservative 305, and other 30.

Judicial Review

The Human Rights Act of 1998,has nonbinding judicial review Acts of Parliament,based on common law tradition with early Roman and modern continental influences.

Courts and Criminal Law

In the Government of Ireland Act 1920,with the creation of the Northern Ireland home rule region,the requisition for a separate parliament building for Northern Ireland emerged.. The parliament met in the nearby Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Assembly's College and also in in Belfast City Hall awaiting the construction of the new building. In the east of Belfest in 1922, preparatory work on the chosen site began. Housing for all three branches of government which included the legislative, executive and judicial was the original plans for a huge domed building with two subsidiary side buildings.It contributed to the plural in the official title still used today. Alongside the parliament and "Ministerial Building" the site would have been host to the Northern Ireland High Court. Supreme Court of the UK, Senior Courts of England and Wales comprises of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice,Crown Courts and also Court of Judiciary (Northern Ireland).

Punishment

The most severe punishment one could think about for committing a crime is being whipped. The damage that whipping does to the skin is something terrible that one would never wish to experience. Northern Ireland over the centuries still retain whipping as the corporal punishment for certain criminals.In Northern Ireland, under the Prison Act (N.I.), 1953, s.14, the maximum punishment is determine on the person's age rather then the crime they commit.. No such power has ever existed in Scotland, and England dispensed with it under the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, s.54; Whereas, In Northern Ireland, it may have been noticed,to retain power to inflict corporal punishment for disciplinary offenses in its one male Borstal institution. It will be useless to stress the severity of the amount of whipping a Northern Ireland prisoner received. Explaining in view of the remarkable fact that Belfast Prison which is the only prison for male prisoner is all the more difficult.

Legal Personnel

Northern Personnel are lawyers. The aim of it being established by climant lawyers was to represent the interest of personal injury victims. Currently, both in abroad and in the U.K, it has around 5,000 members. The interest of its members whose membership includes white collars professionals who is predominantly on behalf of injured claimants.

Law Enforcement

The military system of UK allows teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16-24 with parental consent to volunteer in the service. Women are excluded from ground combat positions and some naval postings, however they serve in military services. inorder to be in the milkitary, one has to a citizen of the UK, Commonwealth, or Northern Ireland it self. To join the law enforcement,reservists serve a minimum of 3 years, to age 45 or 55.

Crime Rates and Public Opinion

The issue with drug and fraud offenses are not only severe here in the United States, but also in Northern Ireland and most part of Europe. Data viewed from the Belfact Telegraph crime rate map shows that "Crime in Northern Ireland: 2008 Summary.In 2008 there were 108,468 total offenses throughout the province, that's around 61 offenses per 1,000 people. This year the biggest fall from the previous year was in ‘Fraud & Forgery’, (-37.8%) while the biggest rise in offenses occurred in ‘Other Offenses - drug offenses’, (+12.8%) " The 2008 trend and statistic of the crime rate in Northern Ireland show that violent crimes are the most amongst all of the different crimes committed in 2008. Although the punishment for committing any crime is horrible and mean but criminals are not backing down. In Northern Ireland public opinion is very important and polls are not taken for granted. An example of this was the peace poll which was conducted after the election was carried out in Northern Ireland, which included a second poll being conducted in March and published in April 1997 to help set a context for an invigorated Talks process after the May Parliamentary elections in the UK. Some general problems were dealt with as well as procedural questions about decommissioning and the participation of parties with paramilitary associations. In general, the electorate wanted All Party Talks with a minimum of preconditions. Sinn Féin were subsequently allowed into the Talks by the new Labour government after the May elections.

Rights

Family Law

The administartion of Northern Ireland,is a common law administaration. There are some important differences in the laws and procedures between Northern Ireland and England and Wales; although its common law is similar to English common law and partially derives from the same sources. The present statute law of Northern Ireland constitute those Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament, that apply to Northern Ireland; as well as Statutory Instruments made by departments of the Northern Ireland Executive and the British Government.. In Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972, the the statute books are Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland passed. Before the Act of Union 1800, the Irish parliament establishes certain Acts. Under Poyning's Law between 1494 and 1782; this also included the extention to Northern Ireland, the British and English parliament.

Social Inequality

In 1998, there was an argeement which would bring about harmony and the growth for everybody, which is known as the God Friday Agreement. There was a new document which revealed that poverty was something which affected both Catholic and Protestant in the United Kingdom.. there is proof of health inequalities in Northern Ireland as reveal by research. This proof is striking, and underlines the need for plans of action which deals with the social processes of health disparities.. Between the rich and the poor, there are two and a half difference in the rate of life expectency. As the result of these social problems, in low income areas of Northern Ireland the health situation are generally worse.(Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety [DHSSPS]2004a).. The deprived areas in Northern Ireland is exoerienceing a continous health gap, despite some major developments.In the potential years of lives lost, infant mortality rates, teenage births,admission rates to hospital and cancer incidence, these are most evidence (DHSSPS 2007)..

Human Rights

The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of the Westminster Parliament which makes the European Convention on Human Rights part of the law of all parts of the UK. It is being said that The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission works tirelessly and independently to ensure that the human rights of everyone in Northern Ireland are fully and completely protected in law, policy and practice..This ended the measures of law, policy and practice in Northern Ireland against internationally accepted rules and principles for the protection of human rights. An interesting question was being asked if there a need for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland? The Bill of Right is very essential and it would be a very good way that citizens would be sure that in the end of anything they do, they have a right to certain things. Unlike the United States, they have the right to education!