As RSI has long predicted, on 28 February 2024 the Belfast High Court found that the UK government has breached the rights of conflict victims in Northern Ireland by enacting the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (‘the Legacy Act’).
In Dillon, McEvoy, McManus, Hughes, Jordan, Gilvary, and Fitzsimmons Application and In the matter of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland [2024] NIKB 11, the Court found that the Legacy Act's amnesty provisions are incompatible with Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’), which require effective investigations into alleged killings and torture, as well as Article 2 of the Windsor Framework (‘WF’), and should therefore be scrapped. The Court also made a declaration that shutting down Troubles-related claims for civil damages would be incompatible with Article 6 ECHR (which concerns due process) and Article 2 WF.
Some of the surviving provisions of the Legacy Act will create a new the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (‘the ICRIR’) for five years to ‘review’ certain legacy cases. We expect that similar legal challenges will ultimately also result in findings that the ICRIR’s procedures, as mandated by the government, violate human rights.
Since the UK government announced its plans to legislate on legacy issues in a July 2021 ‘command paper’ despite widespread opposition to its approach, we consistently told the government that its plans would not comply with human rights laws. We consistently called upon the government to respect the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the Stormont House Agreement, the WF and the ECHR.
RSI will continue to hold the UK government accountable for conflict-related rights violations, especially by scrutinising the ICRIR, which remains intact – for now – following the judgment. On 11 March 2024, we will also provide evidence to the UN Human Rights Committee, calling on the Committee to hold the UK to account for the ways the Legacy Act breaches Articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
While we expect the government to appeal the High Court’s judgment, that court’s powerful findings are an important step toward scrapping this illegal Act, which virtually no one in Northern Ireland wanted and which plainly violates rights.
