LEGACY has now become a constitutional crisis, and the writing has been on the wall for some time. It has already destroyed confidence in local policing. It has threatened the functioning of the courts. It is now threatening the fabric of peace agreements since the Good Friday Agreement itself.

When Hilary Benn walked out last Thursday and said that the British government were taking the case of Sean Brown to the Supreme Court, before the case was finalised in the Court of Appeal in Belfast, he essentially told our devolved local courts to get stuffed.

It is worth remembering why. This British government does not want a public inquiry into another case where the state was implicated in a non-state murder of a citizen. A case where the inquest was halted by the coroner because “secret” state documents, which the state will not reveal to the public, pertaining to the killing of Sean Brown by the LVF, an organisation widely viewed as established by British securocrats, were of such a serious and disturbing nature that only a public inquiry could possibly examine the killing properly.

The British state is implicated by its own documents in that seriousness. But the British state will not comply with the local courts, is not complying with the wishes of the family and is trying to undermine any last vestige of hope anyone might have had that when it comes to legacy the British state has anything other than a totally strategic and selfish interest.

But it could all have been so different. Had the British government one iota of commitment to the Good Friday Agreement and the European Convention of Human Rights written through it, had it committed to the St Andrews Agreement which devolved criminal justice and policing, or had it any semblance of intention to implement the Stormont House Agreement legacy measures, it might have been considered to have acted in good faith. Might.

But instead, when it comes to its role in the conflict and its treatment of all victims and survivors it stands in contempt of all three and thus undermines all three. And it is telling to all of us who consent to the compromise governance of this place that its obligations are conditional to its own interests. So that leaves us with the distressing question: If that is the case, why should the rest of us have confidence in any of those agreements or consent to them?

The separation of the state from the judiciary is a fundamental part of how democracies work. Legislatures make laws. Courts test those laws for legality and enforcement. In 2007, criminal justice reform meant that the local infrastructure of the courts would be respected by all. It was perhaps the most important and effective part of the peace process. Last week’s decision by Hilary Benn throws that into chaos. If the British state has no respect for our devolved courts, then how can they function effectively?

This is no longer just about the courageous and indefatigable Brown family, indeed it is no longer about victims and survivors of the conflict. This is about the treatment of every single citizen living here and whether our fundamental rights, once seemingly protected by the Good Friday Agreement, can be subject to the hubris, ego or self-interest of whoever occupies the position of British Secretary of State.