Justice & Law Quote by Peter Hain

A politician announcing a “new era” is usually a red flag for vaporous uplift, but Peter Hain’s line is doing something more targeted: it’s trying to rename the ground under Northern Ireland’s feet. The “new public prosecution service” isn’t presented as a bureaucratic tweak; it’s framed as a moral reset. By stressing “launching” and locating himself “in Belfast,” Hain performs presence and accountability, as if the geography itself certifies legitimacy. This is governance as symbolism, because symbolism is governance in a post-conflict society.

The key phrase is “criminal justice now exercised on an equal basis.” It’s a promise, but also a rebuttal. Hain is speaking into decades of suspicion that the state’s coercive power was not neutral: that policing, prosecution, and punishment were entangled with sectarian identity, selective enforcement, and inherited distrust. He never names that history directly. Instead he uses a neat contrast: “equal basis” versus “the old basis.” That euphemism is strategic; it avoids reopening arguments about blame while still conceding, quietly, that the system was structurally compromised.

“Community division was a feature” is the most revealing clause. Division isn’t treated as an accidental side effect; it was baked into the design. The subtext is a warning and an invitation: the new institutions will only work if both communities can see themselves inside them. Hain’s intent is to convert administrative reform into shared civic ownership - a prerequisite for peace to feel real, not just negotiated.