Judge calls system for dealing with legacy cases ‘lamentable’

Inquests into scores of deaths involving alleged state collusion and cover-up could go on until 2040 unless the coronial system is changed, Northern Ireland’s top judge has warned.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan described current arrangements for dealing with so-called legacy cases as unsatisfactory, "lamentable" and not working.

Suggesting the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry as a potential blueprint for providing an effective remedy, he said: “Unless a solution is achieved we will continue to incur considerable public expense in legal challenges and claims for compensation.”

Disputed circumstances

His appraisal came as he delivered reasons for upholding a decision to quash the verdict in the inquest into the police shooting of an IRA man 22 years ago. The ruling, by three senior judges at the Court of Appeal in Belfast, clears the way for a new hearing on the circumstances surrounding the death of Pearse Jordan. Their verdict was based on the non-disclosure to next of kin of reports into allegations of a shoot-to- kill policy operated by the security forces.

Jordan was killed in disputed circumstances on the Falls Road in west Belfast in 1992. His death was one of several high-profile cases in Northern Ireland involving claims that the RUC was involved in shoot-to-kill incidents. In October 2012, a long-delayed inquest failed to reach agreement on key aspects.

The jury was split on whether reasonable force was used in the circumstances, the state of belief on the part of the officer who fired the fatal shots and whether any alternative course of action was open to him. The dead man’s father, Hugh, then mounted a judicial review challenge to the outcome.

In January a High Court judge ruled that the inquest verdict should be quashed on a number of grounds, including the failure to disclose the Stalker/Sampson reports into other so-called shoot-to-kill cases and the decision to sit with a jury. Amid fears of a potentially perverse verdict being reached in such a contentious inquest, the judge held that a new tribunal into Jordan’s death should sit without a jury.

Responsible for delay

The PSNI was also held responsible for a delay of up to 11 years in holding the original hearing. A £7,500 compensation award was subsequently made to the Jordan family. Wide-ranging challenges to the High Court outcome were mounted by the chief constable and the coroner. But the three appeal judges concluded last month that the decision to quash the first inquest’s findings was justified.

Lord Justice Morgan agreed that the coroner had been wrong about the potential relevance of the Stalker/Sampson reports.

Deciding that a Police Ombudsman report into the PSNI shooting of Neil McConville in 2003 could not be deployed at the inquest amounted to a further error, the court held.

Setting out further reasons for the decision today, Lord Justice Morgan said it was with “limited enthusiasm” that the court was directing the case be remitted to a different coroner.