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Northern Ireland Troubles Amnesty plan is so flawed it’s hard to know where to start

Alban Maginness

Legacy proposals would shame the Chinese Communist Party

Prime Minister Boris Johnson

July 21 2021 06:00 AM

In releasing its contentious legacy proposals, the British Government has defied the law of political gravity in Northern Ireland and has succeeded — for the first time — in unifying all the leading political parties here against their outrageous plans.

Accompanying this unprecedented political unity, there has been a huge outburst of visceral anger by all sorts of victims’ groups and the relatives of those who suffered the murder of their loved ones during the Troubles, whether they were killed by soldiers, or paramilitaries.

Besides a general distrust of Boris Johnson, people realise that, by introducing a de facto amnesty for former members of the Army, as well as ex-paramilitaries, their basic right to justice through the courts will be removed.

Many people are aware that it is only in exceptionally rare cases that there would be an actual trial; nonetheless, they still do not want that theoretical possibility to disappear.

The families of victims see this as a point of principle that should be upheld, not compromised.

For most of us, justice has no time limit.

People also believe that Boris Johnson is engaged in a cynical political exercise, not designed to advance the interests of victims, or their families, but rather to protect from prosecution a tiny number of veteran soldiers in England.

And, in doing this, he is pandering to the populist campaign of the Daily Mail to protect these retired squaddies from what is improperly termed vexatious prosecution.

This is a totally bogus term, as no court in the land would ever tolerate the vexatious prosecution of any citizen.

The Prime Minister is anxious to hold on to all those ex-Labour seats in England that the Tories, surprisingly, won in the last election.

To provide a way out for these veterans will go down well in those marginal constituencies and consolidate the Tory vote.

While the headline reports about these proposals concerned the egregious amnesty proposal, there are two other areas that have caused major concern.

These are the ending all legacy inquests and the ending of all civil claims against the British Government in Troubles-related cases. This goes for inquests, or civil cases that have already commenced.

In both instances, there will be formidable difficulties in implementing these proposals, because they involve complex legal and human rights issues.

As far as legacy inquests are concerned, they arise out of the European Convention on Human Rights. Under Article 2 — that is the right to life — such inquests into controversial killings have to be compliant with the Convention, in so far as they are thorough, effective investigations that secure meaningful accountability.

In other words, under human rights law you cannot simply abolish them. Despite Brexit, the UK is still a signatory to the ECHR and is subject to the decisions of the court in Strasbourg. It was that court’s case law that shaped and formed what we know as legacy inquests.

In addition, for the past 20 years, the courts in the UK have been subject to the Human Rights Act and, therefore, will apply the same sort of human rights tests as the Strasbourg court.

Therefore, it is hard to imagine the UK Supreme Court agreeing to the abolition of legacy inquests.

As far as civil actions against the state are concerned, it is a basic right at common law to take these actions.

Nobody under the law should be deprived of a legal remedy and, therefore, the wholesale abolition of these cases, especially those that are commenced, or at hearing, would contravene that basic right.

If that were made law, albeit confined to Troubles cases, this would amount to a very serious assault by the Government on the rights and liberties of citizens here.

In a major intervention, Barra McGrory QC, the former DPP, has been scathing: “This is a shocking proposal... in that it seeks to abolish completely all meaningful and judicial accounting processes.”

And he warned: “This is a step that would abolish an historical and ancient judicial process by which controversial deaths can be examined and the legality of that is very questionable.”

If these proposals were introduced by the Chinese Communist government, the British Conservative party would be up in arms about the blatant abrogation of human rights in China.

It is no exaggeration to say that these plans would make even Stalin blush.

It is, therefore, gratifying that all the Stormont parties are against these proposals, in particular the de facto amnesty for soldiers and paramilitaries.

We can only hope that this strong, united opposition will derail them.

First Minister Paul Givan, who looks and sounds confident in his new position, has rightly appealed to the other Stormont parties to “engage collectively to oppose the plans”.

As it stands, this bird will not fly.

Northern Ireland Troubles Amnesty plan is so flawed it’s hard to know where to start

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