Ballymurphy Massacre Families attended the Coroners court in Belfast for preliminary hearing which starts the process for inquests

In November 2011 the families succeeded in persuading the newly appointed Attorney-General that new inquests should be held.

Speaking after the hearing John Teggart, son of Danny Teggart said, today is a major step forward for our campaign, it’s a great day for the families. it’s the start of a legal process that we believe will get to the truth about the death of our loved ones, we have worked tirelessly for many years and today we are on the road to Justice.

We have the full support of Taoiseach Enda Kenny who will be challenging David Cameron on the British Governments position.

The Ballymurphy case raises serious questions regarding human rights abuses committed by the British Army and the culture of impunity that allowed members of British state forces to routinely carry out violent actions without fear of being held accountable.

Those abuses are not officially acknowledged until some time after they have been carried out. The Bloody Sunday families can testify to this assertion.
Here, in the struggle between official and unofficial versions of the truth, the law, and by extension the agencies of the criminal justice system, were often appropriated by the British government as a tool to deny the abuses.

The extensive human rights abuses committed by the British Army would never have happened but for the fact that a compliant prosecution and unionist judiciary promoted the growth of a culture of impunity in which members of the security forces could routinely break the law and present perjured evidence before the courts.
In 1970 an agreement was reached between the General Officer Commanding the British army (GOC) and the Chief Constable of the RUC whereby in an investigation into the use of lethal force by military personnel, the interviewing of soldiers, would be carried out by the Royal Military Police, another branch of the army ‘family tree’. The agreement continued until it was abolished after the imposition of Direct Rule in 1972 and the establishment of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
During the period when the agreement was in force, soldiers who engaged in the use of lethal force were not subject to the rigours of the legal system, nor were they rendered accountable, in any way, for their use of lethal force. The RUC/British army agreement was a significant usurpation of the police responsibility for the investigation of crime when the suspects were soldiers.

These procedures were hopelessly inadequate as a method for investigating the criminal conduct of soldiers has been expressly recognised by the High Court in Belfast in the case of Thompson v. Secretary of State.

The soldiers involved in firing live rounds in Ballymurphy in August 1971 were interviewed by the RMP. There was no attempt to probe these accounts, nor was there any attempt made to address the inconsistencies between the various soldiers’ accounts. It is, moreover, apparent that there was nothing approaching a proper RUC investigation into the incident. Whilst there was civilian evidence to contradict the soldiers’ accounts, particularly as regards their justification for firing live rounds, these accounts were never put to the soldiers and their accounts were simply accepted without question. Inconsistencies in the soldiers’ accounts were deliberately withheld from the Coroner.

In addition, the fact that soldiers didn’t have to give evidence to the Coroner’s Court, the lack of pre-inquest disclosure to the families or their legal representatives, and the inability of the Coroner’s Court to reach ‘findings’ meant that the original inquests into those murdered in the Ballymurphy Massacre were flawed.

The legal regulation of inquests in the North of Ireland has been subject to penetrating changes since the original inquests. These changes to the inquest system have, in large part, been due to legal challenges by the families of victims of state killings. Those who have suffered the abuses often learn from this and employ the law as a tool to focus attention on the violation.

It was in this context that the Ballymurphy Massacre families made an application to the Attorney General to exercise his powers under section 14 of the Coroner’s Act (1959) to reopen the inquests. The Attorney General has directed the Coroner to reopen inquests into the deaths of Fr Hugh Mullan, Francis Quinn, Daniel Teggart, Joan Connolly, Joseph Murphy, Noel Phillips, Edward Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr and John McKerr. The application by the family of Paddy McCarthy,who have never had an inquest into the death of their loved one, was not granted. The Ballymurphy Massacre Committee will continue to gather evidence and witness testimony in relation to the circumstances of the death of Mr McCarthy and intend make a further application at a later date to the Attorney General.

The fresh inquests must now comply with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which means that they will be considerably different creatures than their predecessors. In addition…
• British soldiers involved in the killings are now compellable witnesses
• The House of Lords has made it clear that the Coroner dealing with an inquest now has a generous discretion in relation to the remit of an inquest and that ‘the purpose of an inquest is to investigate fully and explore publicly the facts pertaining to a death occurring in suspicious, unnatural or violent circumstances, or where the deceased was in the custody of the state,
Whilst legal processes may be imperfect, it does not mean that the law is not an important element of a wider truth-finding process. It is only through legal processes that the rule of law can be restored. This is especially so where the legal system, including flawed inquests, has been employed by the state in pursuit of its political objectives during the conflict.
The British army committed murder and abuses of human rights in Ballymurphy in August 1971 is an undeniable, if much denied, truth. That truth must be set free to prevent the casualty of its recurrence and to allow some measure of communal healing. This is not a simple task, but fresh inquests which are compliant with Article 2 of the ECHR (especially in the absence of any other legal mechanisms or truth recovery process) can play a pivotal role to assist in the preservation of an accurate historical account of the events of 9-11 August 1971.