Special Powers Act 1970

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Introduced by Sir Richard Dawson Bate, who was the North’s Minister for Home Affairs, in 1922, the Special Powers Act was intended to be temporary. After being re-enacted every year until 1928 the Special Powers Act then should be legislated for five years. In the end, it should eventually being made long-lasting in 1933. Further, the Act granted the North’s Minister for Home Affairs considerable powers such as being able to suspend and restrict civil liberties. By labelling the RUC and B-Specials as the Minister’s agents they obtained “wide powers of arrest without warrant, search and questioning.” Moreover, the “Minister also had power to detain and intern without trial, hang, flog, prohibit coroners’ inquests and to make regulations, …show more content…
The loss of structure necessary for policing, in fact, led to nearly 300 deaths in Northern Ireland during 1922. Despite the rough start of the 1920s, the rest of the decade was quite peaceful. In the 1930s the peace of the last decade ended. Not only was Northern Ireland troubled by demonstration happening because of an increasing rate of unemployment. During the marching season in 1935, which lasted from 12 July to late August, riots happened nearly every day. While the RUC tried to control the situation they suffered many incidents, as many police officers were hurt during the riots. Following the Second World War, new responsibilities for the RUC emerged, such as: securing the land border with the neutral Republic of Ireland, more inspections concerning smuggling, enforcing war-time regulations, like restrictions on the usage of vehicles and on house light. Moreover, the police force was considered necessary to the war effort on the Home Front. Therefore, the members were not allowed to join other services. Because of the threat of the IRA and the extra war tasks, the policemen were busy enough. Above all, the campaign of the IRA between 1956 and 1962 led to the death of seven police …show more content…
Moreover, mainly Protestants joined the ranks of the USC. Therefore, while the Unionists supported the establishment of the USC, the Catholics were strongly against it. On the one hand, for the Unionists the USC was the fulfilment of their wish of a force that opposed the IRA, supported the RIC with normal police duties and attempted to control Unionist paramilitary organizations to prevent civil war. Beyond that Unionists did not trust the RIC as it was mostly made up of Catholics. On the other hand, the Nationalists’ press were suspecting the USC of terrorising Catholics and
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