The chairman of the British Labour Party's Committee on Northern Ireland has appealed to Lord Saville, who is heading the new inquiry into Bloody Sunday, to accede to the families' demand for adequate legal representation.
The inquiry opens in Derry this morning, and the first item on the agenda is legal representation. The other members of the inquiry are Sir Edward Somers, formerly an appeal court judge in New Zealand, and Mr Justice William Hoyt, former Chief Justice of the province of New Brunswick, Canada. The preliminary hearings are expected to last three days.
The hearings this week will also decide on the extent of the inquiry, procedure, the production of documents, applications for anonymity and for hearings in cam- era, reports by experts, the timings of the hearings and information technology. It will then adjourn until February, when it will start full public hearings.
Glasgow MP, Mr Norman Godman, told The Irish Times that he did not want to see the courageous decision of Mr Blair to have this inquiry "spoiled by bureaucratic miserliness". The families, many on low incomes, deserved adequate legal representation and were not in a position to fund it themselves.
The issue of legal representation has become a vexed one following correspondence between the inquiry and solicitors for the families and wounded. When the inquiry formally opened in April, Lord Saville invited all those entitled to representation to seek it from the inquiry's solicitor. However, he also asked those with similar interests to join together.
Solicitors for the families and those wounded in the shooting, Madden and Finucane, then assembled a team of 14 lawyers to collect evidence and represent their clients. It consisted of three senior and three junior counsel for the families; two of each for the wounded; three solicitors to collate the over 600 witness statements already made and collect new ones in Derry; and one solicitor in Dublin dealing with the political and historical context in which the shootings took place.
According to Mr Don Mullan, author of the book, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, who is assisting the families in preparing for the inquiry, the inquiry has proposed reducing the legal representation to one senior counsel and two juniors for all the families and the wounded, and one firm of solicitors. It is also contesting their claim to independent expert opinion.
"Having been burnt by Widgery we cannot move into this with unquestioning trust," he told The Irish Times. "We expected a lot more sensitivity than this, which is creating additional stress. The MoD is engaging its own experts. It is going to fight us every inch of the way.
"Whatever we end up with from the inquiry will be all the representation we have. The MoD will have access to unlimited resources, drawn from public funds. We should be engaged in whole-hearted preparation for the inquiry, not tied up in these technicalities."
Mr Godman said he had written to the Northern Secretary, to Mr Blair and to Lord Saville asking that the families be allowed to have adequate legal representation. Dr Mowlam had replied saying that the inquiry was independent.
He said many members of the party's Northern Ireland committee shared his views.