Consultation
9.Consultation was a key feature of the provisions for the Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2011. All of the main components were the subject of public consultation; many of the miscellaneous technical and procedural improvements proposed were the subject of targeted or specialist consultation; and the package as a whole was presented to and considered by the Justice Committee.
10.The provisions in the Act are largely based on a series of public policy consultations – some 7 in total – carried out across 2008-2010.
11.A number of other matters are included in the Act – in essence a list of “miscellaneous” matters: some largely technical adjustments or corrections to drafting errors in previous legislation; some addressing the removal of existing legislative flaws; others that are system improvements that benefited from specialist views by way of “targeted” consultation.
12.For completeness these were also included in the equality impact assessment for consultation.
13.In overall terms across all of the consultations respondents were generally positive about the proposals and where adjustments were required, they were made.