Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002

The Justice Act 2002 is an act devolving certain responsibilities for justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly, establishing certain institutions and establishing certain youth justice measures to implement restorative justice.

Background

In order to implement the Good Friday Agreement, responsibilities for justice were devolved
The act is the final product of the Criminal Justice Review.
Full implementation of the act was delayed due to the period of Direct Rule during 2002-2007.

Provisions

The act established the Youth Justice Agency
The act established the Northern Ireland Youth Conferencing Service
The act creates the new offices of Attorney General for Northern Ireland and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland
The act established the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland.
The act established the Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland and the Chief Inspector for Criminal Justice
The act established the Northern Ireland Law Commission
The act established new community sentences
The act established established a statutory aim to "protect the public by preventing offending and reoffending by children" by encouraging children to "recognise the effects of crime and to take responsibility for their actions" and "furthering their personal, social and educational development"
The act establishes the role of "lay magistrate" as part of the youth justice measures

The act also transfers the power to remove or suspend a person holding a listed judicial office, so that it is now exercisable by the Lord Chief Justice. At the time, there was some discomfort with the concept of "lay magistrate" among justices of the peace.
The youth justice measures have two types of disposal:

diversionary conference: referred by the public prosecution service
court-ordered conference

Reception

The use of community sentences and youth conferences reduced the rate of reoffending.
The use of youth conferencing has been described as restorative justice.