Tinkering with Northern Ireland’s new Troubles investigatory and truth recovery body is not going to secure the confidence of bereaved families, MPs have been told.
Alyson Kilpatrick, chief commissioner with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, said the “minute” number of cases the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) has been asked to take on showed that relatives who lost loved ones in the conflict are not prepared to back it.
Ms Kilpatrick was part of a panel of witnesses who gave evidence to the opening session of an inquiry instigated by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to examine the new Government’s approach to legacy issues.
The ICRIR was set up by the last government as part of its contentious Legacy Act.
Former lord chief justice Sir Declan Morgan is the chief commissioner of the ICRIR (PA)
While the Labour Government is repealing parts of the Act, including the contentious offer of conditional immunity for perpetrators of Troubles killings, it has decided to retain the commission.
However, last year the Court of Appeal in Belfast ruled that a Government veto power over what sensitive material can be disclosed to families by the commission is incompatible with human rights laws.
The court also found that the work of the commission does not provide victims and their next of kin adequate means to participate in its processes.
The Appeal Court judges did uphold the operational independence of the commission’s structures.
Some families have vowed not to engage with the commission, claiming it lacks the teeth and independence to properly re-examine their cases.
Ms Kilpatrick told MPs on the committee that the Government appeared wedded to retaining the ICRIR.
“That’s one of the things that’s sort of off the table for discussion and that was taken off the table before families, who are the ones who we are supposed to be most concerned about here, before they had an opportunity to be consulted,” she said.
Ms Kilpatrick added: “I don’t think the ICRIR is going to gain trust and confidence.
“The numbers (of families who have engaged with the commission) are minute compared to the cases and incidents that need to be dealt with and that’s despite the fact that there is nowhere else for these families to go.
“So everything has been shut down for a year. There’s nowhere else to go. But the ICRIR has still very small numbers coming forward. So, if we’re serious about this, and I know this Government is serious about it, and I believe what I’m being told about that, if we’re serious about it, then we need to ask why, why on earth?
“And tinkering around the edges is just not going to change that.”
Daniel Holder, director of the human rights advocacy group the Committee for the Administration of Justice, told the committee that “proper” reinvestigation of Troubles crimes, which were envisaged under previous proposals to deal with the legacy issues, had been replaced by “light touch reviews” undertaken by the ICRIR.
Mr Holder said that for many families the commission would always be associated with the Conservative government’s controversial Legacy Act.
“We regularly hear the concerns of families that the ICRIR is essentially a cover-up commission, and I think they’ve good reason for those concerns,” he said.
“Yet there has been a unilateral decision to retain it. Nevertheless, both the Irish government and ourselves have looked at the question of reform (of the commission), and our conclusion has been that really only some sort of clean break – given not just the toxicity of the relationship between the ICRIR and the Legacy Act, but also its conduct since it’s been set up – only some sort of clean break where you have a substantive and meaningful root and branch reform (process) that produces an entirely distinct institution to the ICRIR, something with a different name, different legal framework and different leadership, something unrecognisable to what’s presently in place, that’s the only thing that’s going to render a reformed legacy institution viable in terms of both human rights compliance and in terms of the important fact of building confidence with families.
“I want to stress that is doable. That is eminently doable.”
While raising concerns about the ICRIR, Mr Holder and Ms Kilpatrick both acknowledged that the current Government was prepared to engage much more with stakeholders on legacy issues that its Conservative predecessors.
Academic expert Professor Anna Bryson, from Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Law, also gave evidence to the committee.
She told MPs that Labour had raised expectations with victims’ families when they pledged to “repeal and replace” the Legacy Act.
“I think one of the problems is that hopes were raised with the bold statement that this Government was going to replace and repeal the Legacy Act,” she said.
“I think what we have seen since is a deep-seated frustration on the part of victims who are now left somewhere in limbo.”
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has previously said he appreciates why families of some Troubles victims remain sceptical about the ICRIR.
Mr Benn has said he knows reform of legislation underpinning the commission is required to secure the confidence of bereaved relatives.