Relatives for Justice casework is always guided by the needs and experiences of our members seeking support.
Mike Ritchie our Casework manager, Paul Butler and Mary McCallan our Caseworkers, work closely with the Director Mark Thompson, who oversees this painstaking and essential work.
Assistance is free and confidential and open to individuals and families affected by conflict related bereavement and injury.
The support includes:
- Recovering a family’s own story of what happened;
- Recording violations and their impact in families’ own words;
- Supporting families and individuals to retrieve public documents;
- Statement taking;
- Supporting families and individuals to identify questions and possible avenues for recovery of information;
- Identifying potential avenues for truth recovery and accountability;
- Supporting a family engaging with investigations and other processes;
- Supporting families making complaints, submissions and applications to agencies such as: The Police Ombudsman’s Office; the Garda Ombudsman; The Attorney General North and South; the PSNI; An Garda Síochána; the Public Prosecution Service; the Inquest Courts; The Human Rights Committee at the United Nations; The European Court and other local and international bodies;
- Producing reports on cases with families and individuals;
- Supporting families and individuals to access legal support when necessary;
- Identifying themes and patterns of violations, providing thematic reports in addition to individual reports.
RFJ support is focused solely on the interests of the bereaved and injured. All statement taking, recording and documentation of violations takes place within a human rights based approach.
Support is non-judgemental, and taken at the pace of the family or individual.
While some people find the journey of truth recovery and the search for accountability empowering in itself, others will find that there are many forms of support also needed while on that journey. RFJ offers a full holistic package of professional support services and assistance including counselling to meet these emerging needs.
