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Ireland will launch legal action against the UK over legislation that would offer an amnesty from prosecution for atrocities committed during Northern Ireland’s Troubles conflict, prompting a sharp riposte from London.
It is only the second time that Dublin has taken a so-called interstate case against its neighbour following a landmark ruling at the European Court of Human Rights 52 years ago.
“I regret that we find ourselves in a position where such a choice had to be made,” Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister, said in a statement.
London’s unilateral attempt to draw a line under the past with the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which bans inquests into Troubles-era offences from next May, has been condemned by the region’s political parties as well as victims’ groups and the Irish government.
Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, called Ireland’s case “misguided”, adding: “We will continue robustly to defend the legislation.”
Human rights groups have said the new law was a barely concealed attempt to shield soldiers from prosecution. The Council of Europe and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have also expressed serious reservations about the act.
“I can see no way, looking at the jurisprudence . . . the European Court of Human Rights will find that amnesty to be lawful,” said Kieran McEvoy, a law professor at Queen’s University Belfast. “I just think that there’s no chance.”
Ireland has said the act is “incompatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations” under the European Convention on Human Rights. Respect for the ECHR is a “fundamental requirement” of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that ended three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, Martin said.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to repeal it if the party wins the UK general election expected next year.
Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin, the largest party on the island of Ireland, hailed the move, saying “this cruel and shameful act is a flagrant breach of international human rights law”.
“We hope this critical litigation will bring all Troubles victims closer to the justice they deserve,” said Gráinne Teggart, deputy director for Northern Ireland at rights group Amnesty International UK.
But the UK government has argued that since a quarter of a century has passed since the Troubles ended, it is time to be realistic and that no alternative solution is available, which Dublin disputes.
Heaton-Harris said Ireland’s position was “inconsistent and hard to reconcile with its own record”. Dublin had made no “concerted or sustained attempt . . . to pursue any criminal investigation and prosecution-based approach to the past”, he said.
“The decision by the British government not to proceed with the 2014 Stormont House Agreement and instead pursue legislation unilaterally, without effective engagement with the legitimate concerns that we, and many others, raised left us with few options,” Martin said.
The UK government in January 2020 reaffirmed its commitment to seek prompt implementation of the legacy provisions of that deal within 100 days but did not do so, deciding to legislate unilaterally instead.
Republican paramilitaries fighting to oust British rule in Northern Ireland, pro-UK loyalist gunmen and British security forces all committed atrocities during the three-decades-long conflict.
The legacy legislation sets up an Independent Commission for Information Recovery and Reconciliation but Martin said its reviews were “not an adequate substitute” for police investigations.
Alyson Kilpatrick, chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, told the Financial Times she “welcomed” the Irish decision to bring the action but individual cases currently before the courts would have to continue.
The High Court in Belfast is considering a number of cases that challenge specific aspects of the legislation and a ruling is expected within weeks.
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