UK government appeals decision finding Northern Ireland amnesty law violates of human rights News
NTF30, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UK government appeals decision finding Northern Ireland amnesty law violates of human rights

The UK government lodged an appeal against a decision which found that the Northern Ireland (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act breaches several articles of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), according to a UK government spokesperson that spoke to IrishCentral on Thursday. The controversial act sought to end prosecution for crimes committed during the 30-year period of violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. The Northern Irish High Court found in favor of the family members of victims who were killed or severely wounded by soldiers or paramilitary groups during the Troubles, who originally brought the lawsuit, in a February 28 decision.

A spokesperson for the UK government announced:

We remain committed to implementing the Legacy Act and delivering the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) to provide better outcomes for victims and survivors of the Troubles by giving them more information about what happened to their loved ones.

In the February decision, Justice Adrian Colton found that the provisions of the act introducing a broad amnesty for all criminal offenses related to the conflict “clearly undermined” and therefore breached Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, which provide an absolute protection to the right to life and the prohibition of torture, respectively. As such, the court issued a declaration of incompatibility under section four of the Human Rights Act. Although this declaration does not impact the validity of the act, it sends a strong message to the government about the extent of existing human rights violations.

At the time of the original decision, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris stated in the UK Parliament that his office would consider the court’s findings very carefully but that he remains “committed” to implementing the act. It is on this basis which the Northern Ireland Office now appeals the original decision.

Alongside this case, the Irish government also lodged a new application directly with the European Court of Human Rights in January concerning the act. This separate case is ongoing. In it, the Irish government claims that the act breaches up to five human rights protected under the ECHR.

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