Sir, – The decision of the Irish Government to initiate an inter-state case against the British government at the European Court of Human Rights over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 was entirely predictable. It is another example of how both governments have contracted out the task of truth recovery and reconciliation for victims and survivors of the Troubles to the courts.
It is also further evidence that relations between the two states are probably at their lowest since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
The current situation is a consequence of the failure of both governments to build on the Stormont House Agreement of 2014. The establishment of the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval (ICIR), which provided an effective mechanism for recovering the remains of the “disappeared”, should have been used as a template to address the need for the families of all those killed, as well as more than 45,000 survivors who suffered life-changing injuries, to receive some measure of truth and justice.
No one is suggesting that an agreed approach will be easy but nor should the problem have been contracted out to the courts. They are not designed or equipped to deal with the legacy of communal ethnic conflicts.
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Time is fast running out, especially for the majority of those affected by death and injury who had suffered by the end of 1975, almost half a century ago.
Now it seems both governments are shifting the problem to the European Court of Human Rights.
We would argue that a truth recovery process, providing amnesties that are conditional on former combatants providing honest testimony, should be considered as an alternative. The other conditions would be that former combatants must be willing to engage with the victims through mediation, if the latter so wish. This process can address the many outstanding cases that will never see the inside of a courtroom. It can also address the many miscarriages of justice that occurred.
Such a process would leave the legal option open to those victims and survivors who would rather seek justice through the courts.
If both governments continue down the current path, there will be a price to be paid not alone by victims and their families but by future generations. The decisions by the British government in 1922 to issue a general amnesty for the War of Independence and by the Free State government for the Civil War were far from ideal, but at least it saved future generations from having to perpetuate the conflict through the courts. – Yours, etc,
HARRY DONAGHY,
JOHN GREEN,
PADRAIG YEATES,
Truth Recovery Ireland,
Portmarnock,
Dublin 13.
Sir, – The Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton Harris accuses the Irish Government of being “misguided” in taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights (“Who actually runs this damn country?”, News, December 21st).
The ECHR may provide the answer to that question. It may rule against the British government’s preference to offer a conditional amnesty for perpetrators of Troubles-related crimes by replacing methods of criminal and civil investigations and inquests with inquiries carried out by a new investigative body.
Either way, it appears to matter little who is opposed to the British government’s unilateral stance. Britain is the sovereign power with most to hide in relation to running a loyalist proxy war and the involvement of its official and unofficial agents.
I believe that no matter what verbal assurances victims’ families may get, no British government will tell the truth about its role in fomenting and driving the conflict. Britain broke previous pledges because it has no intention of exposing its core responsibility for violence, directly or through loyalist agents.
Although the legacy issue has cast a long shadow on our relationship with our nearest neighbour, the Government must continue to pursue justice for victims. Failure to do so would bring shame and ridicule on this country. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6w.