Legacy Act to rob 'at least 37 families of answers' with May 1st
Sunday Life, February 18th, 2024
Christopher Woodhouse
UP to 37 Troubles inquests may not deliver findings because of the deadline imposed by the controversial Legacy Act. Of those cases, 18 have started hearing evidence, two have been listed for hearing and 17 have yet to be given a hearing date.
The figures were revealed in an answer to a written parliamentary question put to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) by former Northern Ireland secretary Lord Hain. Last week he accused state agencies of deliberately “running down the clock” ahead of the May 1 deadline.
Under the Legacy Act, all inquests which have not reached the stage where only findings, verdicts or rulings are outstanding will cease on that date. A new fact-finding body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, will then be the only organisation that can examine Troubles deaths.
It is headed by Sir Declan Morgan, who served as lord chief justice of Northern Ireland from 2009 to 2021.
Those who can ask for the commission to review a death include close family members of the deceased, the secretary of state, the attorney general and the advocate general. The Act is currently subject to a number of legal challenges by both victims' groups and the Irish government.
Among those pursuing the government through the courts is Gemma Gilvary, whose brother Maurice was shot dead by the IRA's notorious 'nutting squad' — headed by state agent Freddie Scappaticci — in 1981.His killing also forms part of the Operation Kenova investigation into Scappaticci's activities as Stakeknife by Jon Boutcher, now the chief constable of the PSNI.
Prosecutions
Ms Gilvary's solicitor Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, told Sunday Life: “The figure of 37 doesn't tell the full story. That's 37 inquests in play. Of course, had we not got the Legacy Act an awful lot more inquests which could have been coming down the track aren't now happening.
“It doesn't tell the full story of just how devastating an impact this Act is having in all sectors of Troubles-related litigation.
“Of course, inquests are only one part of it, and in this case (Maurice Gilvary) we have had Operation Kenova, with its report due out on March 8. What we would have liked to have seen happen is the potential for prosecutions.
“The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced a decision not to prosecute, and the significance of the Legacy Act on Kenova and this case — and many of the other dozens of cases impacted by Kenova — is the potential to ask the PPS to review the decisions not to prosecute.
“We have asked it to review the decisions in all the cases we are involved in with Kenova.
“But the Legacy Act will time out those reviews as well, so it's not just inquests, it's right across the board.
“The families of the victims of the Stakeknife affair are, like many other families, losing out.
“It's a draconian guillotine of an Act that denies families access to justice.”
Last week Lord Hain blasted the government in a House of Lords debate for the effect the “shameful” Act would have on families seeking truth and justice.
He asked NIO minister Lord Caine: “Is the minister not extremely perturbed — indeed, embarrassed — by the fact that state bodies appear to be openly running down the clock to May 1, when the due process that we set such store by in the United Kingdom will no longer apply in Northern Ireland thanks to the shameful legacy Act?
“In one case, a Ministry of Defence official told an inquest 'We have only a single officer supporting Northern Ireland inquests'.
“In another, the legal representative of the PSNI admitted that further resources could be deployed and more progress made, but said, in terms, 'What's the point?'
“Is this not a disgraceful way to treat victims of the Troubles, who have suffered so much already?
“An abject failure by state officials and agencies to produce the necessary files in anything like a timely fashion also continues, despite the relevant state bodies being directed to do so by a serving coroner acting with the full authority of the lady chief justice.”
