UK government welcomes Supreme Court ruling on Troubles legacy legislation
By Claudia Savage and Cillian Sherlock, Press Association
The UK government has welcomed a Supreme Court ruling in relation to Troubles legacy, saying its new Bill “is fully equipped to deliver human rights-compliant” investigations.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government will be examining the judgment “very carefully”.
The 2023 Legacy Act was introduced by the previous Conservative government and offered conditional immunity for perpetrators of some Troubles crimes in exchange for co-operation with a new body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), which would oversee investigations.
The Labour government has since introduced a new Bill to Parliament to overhaul the Act, with MPs already voting to repeal the conditional immunity provision and scrap a bar on future legacy compensation cases as the new Bill is still being debated.
Northern Ireland’s High Court and the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal (NICA) had both previously found that parts of the Act were incompatible with human rights and also undermined the rights of victims in breach of the Windsor Framework, which was signed following the UK leaving the EU.
It is clear that the Troubles Bill is now the only viable way to generate confidence across communities
Despite efforts to change the law, the Northern Ireland Office still took the case to the Supreme Court over the application of the Windsor Framework, telling a hearing last October that the issue was “constitutionally profound”.
Four Troubles victims opposed the challenge, but in a ruling on Thursday, five Supreme Court justices unanimously allowed the Government’s challenge.
In their 77-page judgment, judges ruled that the four victims were “unable to establish that the 2023 Act led to a diminution of rights”.
A UK government spokesperson said the ruling “has confirmed that the ICRIR is fully equipped to deliver human rights-compliant investigations, and reaffirms the Government’s position on the interpretation and application of Article 2 of the Windsor Framework”.
“Today’s judgment also shows that the Government was right to address the main flaw in the Legacy Act – namely conditional immunity,” they said.
“The scheme, which never came into force, was wrong in principle, lacked public confidence, and has been repeatedly rejected by the courts.
“While the question of immunity was not before the Supreme Court, the court went out of its way to refute the main argument put forward for it.
“It is clear that the Troubles Bill is now the only viable way to generate confidence across communities, enable information sharing by the Irish authorities and put in place the necessary safeguards for our former service personnel.”
Martin told reporters in Belfast his thoughts are with the victims who took the case because “behind every legacy case there is a family, there is suffering, and there are those who have been impacted in the most grievous of ways”.
Martin said he had not had an opportunity to examine the “lengthy judgment” but said: “We will examine this very carefully.
“My view is that the joint framework agreement that we have on the table – and that’s being legislated for at the moment in Westminster – is the best opportunity in a generation to bring into effect a meaningful, impactful and sustainable legacy framework.”
He added: “I’ve witnessed various iterations over the years that have come to nothing.
“It’s extremely important for survivors, for victims, families, that we do everything we can to get this framework over the line.”
First Minister Michelle O’Neill said that any process around legacy “needs to command the confidence of the victims” and “be human-rights compliant”.
“I think that the British Government have demonstrated that they are prioritising the needs of British state forces over the needs of victims – and I think that is cruel, to be quite blunt about it,” she said.
She added: “I think a lot of families will be left feeling very disheartened tonight, feeling very despondent, actually, in terms of what I have seen in terms of the headlines.”
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said it was important that all victims and survivors are able to get justice but said the judgment was around the scope of the Windsor Framework and those who “wanted to make sure that there was an expansionist interpretation of Article 2”.
She said: “We had raised those concerns, as you will be aware, at Westminster because, of course, that would have meant that Northern Ireland law would have had to keep up in a dynamic way with European Union law.
“That would have had all kinds of consequences much further than this very specific issue in this case – so I think it’s the right decision.”
DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the ruling as “significant and welcome”.
“For those who believed that bodies such as the Equality Commission or Human Rights Commission set the law in Northern Ireland this should be a wake-up call,” he said.
“Their activism has been exposed, and they should now make clear that their attempts to undermine the previous Supreme Court ruling will be withdrawn.
“As a result of their own actions, any credibility they had or confidence which remained in them has now been lost.”
Ulster Unionist peer and party chairman Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard also welcomed the ruling but said “the Government should have fought harder to earn it”.
He said: “The Supreme Court has been clear: the Belfast courts had no business disapplying Acts of the Westminster Parliament using the Windsor Framework, and the ICRIR was never the institutional failure the Court of Appeal claimed it to be.”
He added: “The Secretary of State Hilary Benn’s replacement legislation is so unworkable it needed a parliamentary carry-over motion just weeks ago to stop it collapsing entirely, and Dublin’s interstate case grinds on despite the Irish Government having secured every concession it asked for in last September’s joint framework.
“That case should be withdrawn. The silence from this Government on that question is telling.”
