With so much attention being directed at the vexed issue of policing Johanna Keenan of the Pat Finucane Centre asks where now with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions? Have we ignored the Criminal Justice Review at our peril?

When 15 year old Danny Hegarty was cut down by shots fired at point blank range from a general purpose machine gun in Creggan it was a soldier who fired the shots. But it was the office of the DPP who decided that the soldier should not be prosecuted. Yet rarely has the spotlight shone on the workings of this office which is central to the criminal justice system.

‘Prosecutors, as essential agents of justice, shall at all times maintain the honour and dignity of their profession.’

This and other international standards of openness, fairness, accountability, and efficiency are the principles governing the performance of prosecuting authorities in their capacity as the central figure in the link between law enforcement and penal sanction.

Of the proposed reforms for the criminal justice agencies, those relating to prosecution were the most extensive. They offered a real opportunity for a new beginning. Yet, when the Implementation Plan and Justice Bill were published these extensive reforms had been gutted to the extent that nothing much had changed ... except the name.

The role of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alasdair Fraser, is fundamental within the criminal justice system. He has the duty to ensure the guilty do not evade justice, and the innocent do not suffer injustice.

However, the DPP’s role in controversial cases has ensured that the guilty have, all too frequently, evaded justice - if they were wearing the Queen’s uniform when committing the offence, or, again all too frequently, if they were being handled by the security services when the offence was committed.

This starkly contrasts with the experience of many individuals prosecuted on the basis of tenuous evidence or confessions beaten from them.

Next year the office of the DPP will celebrate it’s 30th anniversary. The Director can look back over a career that has seen him play a key role in the termination of cases against agents in the Pat Finucane case, the failure to prosecute RUC officers who watched Robert Hamill get beaten to death and the officers who repeatedly death-threated Rosemary Nelson. Prior to this Fraser was Assistant Director ... throughout the era of the shoot-to-kill and Supergrass cases.

Fraser can celebrate emerging relatively unscathed from the current reforms of the criminal justice system. Despite its record, its failure to secure widespread public confidence, and damning criticism in the European Court of Human Rights this summer, little has changed for the DPP - despite radical proposals for reform recommended in the Criminal Justice Review.

The all-new Public Prosecution Service (PPSNI) will still be headed by a DPP (Fraser), who will continue to operate behind a veil of secrecy, and will be accountable only to a member of the Westminster cabinet. He can still refuse to disclose reasons for decisions not to prosecute, and there is no proposed mechanism to improve efficiency.

A positive development is that the new prosecution service will in future be responsible for all prosecutions - although this was first proposed by the Hunt Commission in 1969, the RUC/PSNI currently conduct three quarters of all prosecutions.

Can we expect a new, enlightened public prosecution service guided by international human rights standards and striving to protect human dignity? Without fundamental reform of both the structure and the ethos of the prosecuting authority a truly new beginning is unlikely.

Whether the Justice Bill brings radical change (unlikely) or a few tweaks to the old system (more likely) - we have a right to expect and to demand certain commitments from the DPP. The Public Prosecution Service must function to administrate justice. Crucially it must also be seen to be administrating justice.

Prosecution and the defence of human rights are not at opposite ends of the criminal justice spectrum. Far from being irreconcilable principles they should in practice be inextricably linked.

The deadline for submissions on the proposed Justice Bill has been extended to January 7 2002. The PFC has previously published a critical analysis of the role of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.