Despite court ruling, the families of Troubles victims no closer to truth

Posted by Jim on September 23, 2024

Allison Morris

Today at 02:40

We have reached an important juncture when it comes to dealing with the legacy of our past.

An Appeal Court ruling on Friday, delivered by Lady Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan, was a damning indictment on the former government’s mechanisms to deal with unsolved Troubles related killings.

The ruling was lengthy and detailed but the shorthand version of the judgment is that the Troubles Legacy Act gives the government too much veto power over the disclosure of sensitive material to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).

The commission, headed up by former Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, has already started investigating killings after requests by families.

However, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal in its judgment, in a case brought by bereaved relatives, found that the veto over disclosure seriously impeded the commission’s ability to carry out human rights compliant investigations.

As we know this legislation was passed by the previous Conservative government

We can debate at length why they went down this route, but we know this was done over the heads of victims and without local political support.

I was always sceptical of the new Labour government’s manifesto pledge to repeal the legislation.

It seemed much more likely that they would tinker around the edges of it rather than scrap it completely.

A previous court has already ruled that a controversial measure to give an amnesty to suspects was not legally sound and would not stand up to judicial scrutiny.

The Lady Chief Justice said the legislation gave whoever the Secretary of State was at the time “the final say” on disclosure of sensitive state information to the ICRIR, adding that this would risk undermining public confidence in the body.

Sir Declan Morgan said in response that the Secretary of State needs to “respond to the judgment”.

“The Commission has already welcomed his proposal to further enhance our independence and would welcome additional steps by him to address the issues identified by the court,” he added.

However, solicitor Gavin Booth, who represented a number of families in the appeal said, “there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig”.

His message is clear, that tinkering with the ICRIR will never satisfy those families who have difficult and complex cases, involving layers of allegations of collusion and state intransigence.

The problem going forward is what could help those families who have been failed by successive governments when it comes to legacy and delivering truth and justice in their loved ones murders?

Many had hoped the inquest process would be the answer to decades of waiting.

A positive example of this was the inquest ruling in the case of the Ballymurphy massacre that vindicated those families who had lived with years of stigma that was attached to the deaths of their innocent loved ones.

But with the former government determined to end all legacy inquests that process was less successful for others.

The relatives of those murdered in the Kingsmill atrocity were left disappointed that the inquest did not name any of the suspects involved in the 1976 IRA attack.

When the coroner delivered his finding earlier this year Alan Black, the only survivor of the attack said the inquest had “left us all so dissatisfied”.

“As we progressed through the inquest our questions have not been answered and our concerns have grown.”