Politics

Discretion in place of process: family employment and the DUP’s commissioned review…

Slugger O'Toole logoSlugger O'Toole

The Democratic Unionist Party’s exposure over Jeffrey Donaldson is not only a matter of individual wrongdoing but also a failure of institutional process. Its employment of relatives, lawful but now disproportionately visible within the party, exemplifies a reliance on privately held knowledge where formal disclosure was needed, the same weakness implicated in the escalation failure the case has revealed. A leadership-commissioned review cannot yet answer for that record while its essential...