Split the Department of Justice?

Given the regular migration of UK policy proposals to the Republic, here’s one worth watching: Home Secretary John Reid’s announcement that he’s seriously considereing splitting the Home Office into 2 departments — which might be a tempting idea for an under-siege Minister for Justice to float the next time a scandal hits the department.  As this BBC story explains, Reid wants to separate the detention and security functions of the Home Office.  But this may reflect that his most recent headaches have related to lapses about prisoners.  It’s not necessarily the best way to split workload when one department is responsible for everything from security, immigration, prosecution, prisons, and all the civil law functions assigned to the department.  The experience of other countries points to various models, such as the still struggling US Department of Homeland Security working with a Department of Justice, and the longer-standing continental model of Interior Ministries working in tandem with Justice (and sometimes defence) ministries. 

In the Irish context, one of the biggest embarrassments came from communication breakdowns between Justice and the Attorney-General’s office, which maybe has less to do with overall workload than mismanagement.  But it’s a fair question as to whether the assignment of functions (note the bloated title of the department), much of which seems to have happened by accident, still makes sense.