Bid to Raise Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility Fails at Stormont
A proposal at Stormont to increase the minimum age at which a child can be prosecuted for a crime in Northern Ireland has formally failed.
Unionist parties opposing the increase from 10 to 14 years in most cases invoked a veto mechanism known as a petition of concern.
This procedural move required any subsequent vote to obtain cross-community support, meaning a majority of both unionist and nationalist MLAs needed to back the proposal.
Sinn Féin, Alliance, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) had put forward amendments to the Justice Bill currently progressing through the assembly, advocating for raising the age.
They described the proposals as progressive and grounded in recommendations from the United Nations and other experts.
'Waste of time'
On Tuesday, following a mandatory 14-day consideration period triggered by the petition of concern signed by 30 MLAs from at least two parties, the legislation returned to the assembly floor for a vote.
The vote outcome was 32 nationalist MLAs in favour and 34 unionist MLAs opposed.
Additionally, 16 Alliance MLAs voted in favour; however, as they are designated as "Other" in the assembly, their votes did not contribute to the threshold required for cross-community consent.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), and four Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MLAs supported the petition of concern. They argued that raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) in all but the most serious offences, such as rape and murder, was excessive.
MLAs supporting the change described Tuesday's votes as "pointless" and a waste of time, given that the petition of concern ensured the legislation would not pass.
A separate motion by People Before Profit's Gerry Carroll to raise the age to 16 also failed.
What is MACR?
MACR stands for the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is the youngest age at which an individual can be arrested and charged with a crime.
At 10 years old, Northern Ireland has one of the lowest MACRs worldwide.
England and Wales also set the age at 10, while Scotland and the Republic of Ireland have it at 12. However, Scotland allows for exceptional cases where criminal responsibility for the most serious offences is set at 10.
The United Nations body monitoring the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has recommended that countries raise their MACRs to at least 14 years.
In 2023, the Department of Justice reported "strong support" for increasing the age from 10 to 14.
Previous attempts to amend the legislation did not secure sufficient political backing.
What is a petition of concern?
Introduced under the Good Friday Agreement, the petition of concern is a mechanism designed to protect minority rights within Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly.
When a petition of concern is submitted to the assembly Speaker, any motion or amendment requires cross-community support to pass.
This means a vote must achieve a weighted majority of 60% of members voting, including at least 40% from both nationalist and unionist designations present and voting.
Effectively, this allows a community with sufficient MLAs to exercise a veto over assembly decisions.
A notable use of this mechanism occurred in 2015 when a majority voted in favour of same-sex marriage, but the motion was blocked after the DUP deployed a petition of concern.
In recent years, concerns have been raised that the petition of concern is being used in ways that diverge from its original purpose as a cross-community safeguard.
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