Sinn FEin has said that acceptance by the SDLP and the Catholic bishops of the British government's package of police reforms will lead to abusers of human rights remaining in the North's police force.
The party's chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, attacked the plan for not making all officers swear a new oath and for allowing inquiries by the police board into past abuses to be blocked.
He said that "human rights abusers who are presently within the RUC and who have been protected by the hierarchy of the RUC and the NIO will simply transfer across".
The Patten Commission on Policing recommended that all serving officers, as well as new recruits, should swear a new oath, pledging to uphold human rights. Under the new implementation plan, serving officers will be "made aware" of the new oath and the need to execute their duties in accordance with it. The values of the oath will also be incorporated into a new code of police ethics.
Mr McLaughlin said: "In effect, we will have a two-tier policing force, where 200 new recruits will have taken a human rights oath and thousands of RUC officers transferring across will not."
He said that many serving RUC officers were "members either of Masonic organisations or the Orange Order" and that Patten had specifically recommended the new oath to supersede any membership oaths which these officers may have already taken.
The implementation plan also sets out the limits on the policing board's powers of initiating inquiries. Patten had recommended that the board should have the power to launch an investigation into any matter unless it involved national security, sensitive personnel issues or matters before the courts. In the event of the Chief Constable disputing the board's ruling, the Northern Secretary would be the final arbiter.
The plan accepts this recommendation, emphasising that the Northern Secretary would not be obliged to support the Chief Constable and "would not envisage overruling the board without discussion with it". However, the Northern Secretary could still overrule the board and the British government would have control of any additional funding for inquiries.
Mr McLaughlin said that these conditions could effectively block any investigations. "The outstanding issue of a British Secretary of State, the outstanding issue of a Chief Constable being able to defy a board that wanted to have inquiries or that wanted to deal with the issue of human rights abuse is a matter that can be got right, should have been got right, and it is wrong to proceed without resolving that," he said.
Mr McLaughlin challenged those who supported the new arrangements. "There is a question to be answered. Is this Patten? If it's not Patten, why have they settled for it? Is the issue of colluders with the loyalist death squads who are presently in the RUC turning up in the police service a new beginning to policing?"