By RFJ CEO Mark Thompson
After commissioning the Consultative Group on the Past (Eames/Bradley) the last Labour government refused to implement independent legacy proposals recommended by the group. The tory government reneged on the independent legacy mechanisms reached with the Irish government and the executive parties in 2014, under the Stormont House Agreement (SHA).
Then Irish government minister, Charlie Flanagan, was highly critical of the unilateral insertion of a ‘national security’ veto by the British after the agreement. He told the Irish News it was a ‘smothering blanket’ to conceal information. He also referenced the need for the British to provide information on the Dublin/Monaghan bombings; the largest loss of life in the conflict on any single day and described by an Oireachtas Committee as an act of state sponsored terrorism.
Despite widespread support the tories binned the agreement and set about a series of unilateral steps centred on immunity and amnesty to shield multiple crimes committed by its forces, intelligence services, and their agents. This resulted in the Legacy Act.
Labour came to power on the promise to ‘repeal and replace’ the tory Legacy Act and its so-called independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). This has not happened. Instead, they are tinkering around the edges, dressing up, an irreformable piece of legislation that provides powers of veto to a secretary of state who has the final say on information disclosed to families via the ICRIR. Local courts, at every level, have declared the Legacy Act unlawful.
Hilary Benn also promised to immediately table several remedial orders that included restoring all inquests shut down by the Act. He also promised to table draft legislation. Neither have occurred.
Hilary Benn appears far more content in continuing legal challenges initiated by his predecessor to the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) to deny families access to information about the murders of their loved ones despite multiple rulings by courts in Belfast declaring that information should be provided.
The lead case involves the sectarian murder of Paul Thompson in 1994. Lawyers for the PSNI chief constable argued before UKSC in favour of disclosure. Paul’s last surviving relative Eugene passed away recently whilst awaiting judgment. By deed, intelligence and protecting state agents more important than truth for families.
Hilary Benn, like all British secretaries, is captive to the advice and control of Britain’s intelligence services. In effect, no matter what his initial intentions were he has been nobbled. This was very evident in the appalling case of murdered GAA official Sean Brown with Benn continuing the tory challenge to the coroner’s call for a public inquiry, endorsed by the courts. Legal papers revealed that in making the decision to challenge Benn consulted with the MoD and MI5; the very agencies running agents within the organisation responsible for Mr Brown’s murder.
We have an absurd situation where some of those that would supposedly be under investigation effectively control the investigation process under the pretence of ‘national security’, which is currently playing out in court challenges and will continue through the powers of veto over disclosure.
In what other set of circumstances would those subject to investigation and inquiry set the agenda?
Families have relied on law and the ECHR (HRA 1998) and in particular their Article 2 rights for effective investigation and remedy. The British government response was to challenge and delay, then deny these rule of law norms that were delivering to families by imposing the Legacy Act’s ICRIR; a process that can also facilitate de-facto impunity.
Had this so-called investigative arm of the Legacy Act been operational in recent years there’d have been no disclosures of agents involved in the murder of Sean Brown or of similar patterns in the murder of Paul Thompson and others involving collusion; no referral of covert soldiers to the PPS in the Clonoe killings; no disclosures of agents and collusive behaviours in significant reports by the police ombudsman; no inquest disclosures declaring unarmed civilians killed by British soldiers without justification, including the findings in Ballymurphy. Ironically, the day of that verdict was the very day the Legacy Act was announced in the British monarch’s speech at the opening of parliament.
Families are expected to trust the British government and get on with a legacy process that is so fundamentally flawed from its independence, composition, and powers, that families impacted by collusion, extra-judicial killings, and the use of lethal force are effectively being asked to be participate in the cover-up.
The UK starting point has always been to protect its soldiers, intelligence services and their agents within paramilitaries. They are not neutral or honest brokers. Our experience tells us this, which is why independence and international involvement is critical.
We haven’t witnessed any change. Yet families are being asked to trust when the evidence base tells us the British are habitual bad faith actors. Their key objective is to have Irish government support. Once that’s complete they’ll revert to type.
The only determining factor will be the actual legislation passed, not more promises.
Trust is built on actions. Hilary Benn could announce a public inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown; disclose the information in the murder of Paul Thompson, restore all, not some, inquests, and remove the power of veto in laying the ground for moving forward in creating a genuinely new independent international legacy body. This would be a positive start.
Deeds speak louder than words.
