The Republic of Ireland announced on Wednesday, December 20, that it was seizing the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge the legality of a British amnesty law (the “Northern Ireland Troubles Act”) adopted in September, on the grounds that it is “incompatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.” This is only the second time that Dublin has taken legal action in Strasbourg against London. The first time, in 1971, Ireland challenged the methods used by the British to question people interned in Northern Irish prisons.
The amnesty law contested by Dublin, but also by all Northern Irish political parties, prohibits police investigations or trials for crimes committed during the period of the “Troubles”, this civil war which opposed the Catholics, nationalists (in favor of the reunification of Ireland) to Protestants, mainly unionists (in favor of maintaining Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom). From the end of the 1960s, this conflict caused the deaths of around 3,500 people, the majority civilians – the British army, unionist paramilitaries and nationalists, having committed atrocities.
The civil war ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Peace Treaty, which allowed the disarmament of militias and the release of all political prisoners from prison. But this agreement was not accompanied by any reconciliation process and thousands of Northern Irish families are still demanding justice even though very few crimes have been solved and criminals convicted.
Challenge to future immunities
In 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the origin of the amnesty law, said he wanted ” draw a line “ on the Troubles. His law, also defended by his successors Liz Truss then Rishi Sunak, provides for the creation of an independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Gathering, supposed to grant immunities to people giving confessions. It should also be possible for families demanding to know more about the disappearance of their loved ones.
“This organization will have no capacity to request sensitive information from the British army for example, it will provide far fewer answers to families than a police investigation,” underlines Kieran McEvoy, lawyer and specialist in conflict resolution at Queen’s University in Belfast.
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