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APRIL
2006
THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE DEATH OF DENIS DONALDSON
The brutal murder of Denis Donaldson on 4th April, like so many other killings in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict, raised more questions than it answered. It had emerged that Denis Donaldson, who was Sinn Féin’s Head of Administration at Stormont, had been working for Special Branch and MI5 for over 20 years. As has happened before, he was given assurances by the IRA that he would not be harmed, yet he ended up dead. However, the intelligence services gained his guaranteed silence when he died, he apparently having refused to take part in an IRA de-briefing. Those who follow these matters closely will recall that the arrest (for running a “spy ring” at Stormont about which the authorities had known for months) of Denis Donaldson, along with his son-in-law and a Stormont messenger, in October 2002 was used to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly for a fourth time, and it is yet to be restored. His murder seemed to some commentators to be designed to destroy any chance of reviving Stormont, and whether it has had that effect remains to be seen. However, there are many questions surrounding this whole unhappy episode. Was Denis Donaldson set up? Why was an agent with such long service prosecuted at all? Why did the trial collapse? Not least of all, who killed him? There is, though, an even more serious question underlying all these conundrums. If it is true, and it would appear to be so, that the intelligence services had spies deep within the infrastructures of all the main paramilitary groups, and so much knowledge of what was happening politically, why was the conflict not brought to an end long ago and how many people have died whose lives could have been saved?
billy wright case adjourned until may
The judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision to convert the Billy Wright Inquiry to an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 has been adjourned until 17th May 2006. Amnesty International, British Irish RIGHTS WATCH and the Committee on the Administration of Justice have made a third party intervention in the case brought by Billy Wright’s father, David Wright, as has the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. All four organisations are supporting David Wright’s claim that the Inquiries Act is not compatible with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life, because it cannot deliver an effective, independent investigation into the murder of LVF leader Billy Wright inside the Maze Prison in 1997. This case is the first legal challenge of the Inquiries Act.
NO NAMES, NO PACK DRILL, BUT THANKS ANYWAY
I should like to thank most warmly the anonymous donor who sent us £200 by pressing the DONATE NOW button on our website. I hope as many people as possible will follow our friend’s example, whether by name or not. We need all the help we can get, and I promise that we will use any donations we receive to promote respect for human rights in relation to the conflict and peace process regardless of religious, political or community affiliations.
EMINENT JURISTS PANEL VISITS Northern Ireland
On 19th April I travelled to Belfast to take part in a session of international NGOs, along with Human Rights First, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the New York City Bar Association. We met with members of the International Commission of Jurists’ Eminent Jurists Panel, who are visiting some 14 countries to examine the relationship between human rights and measures to combat terrorism. CAJ are to be congratulated on organising an action-packed programme for the panel, who I believe gained many insights from hearing about Northern Ireland’s experience from many different perspectives. BIRW’s submission to the panel is available on our website. At the end of their visit, the panel held a press conference in which they called, amongst other things, for an independent inquiry into the murder of Belfast lawyer Patrick Finucane.
UK STILL STALLING ON EFFECTIVE INVESTIGATIONS
We have made yet another submission to the Council of Ministers in Europe concerning the failure of the UK to provide effective investigations into six landmark murders. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in August 2001 that there had not been an effective investigation into the deaths of Jordan, McKerr, Kelly & Others, or Shanaghan. In August 2002 the Court delivered a similar judgment in the case of McShane, and again in October 2003 in the case of Finucane. The victims in McKerr were killed on 11th November 1982. Those in Kelly and Others died on 8th May 1987. Patrick Finucane was murdered on 12th February 1989. Patrick Shanaghan was killed on 12th August 1991. Pearse Jordan was shot on 25th November 1992. Dermot McShane died on 8th May 1996. Thus these families have been waiting for between 13 and 10 years for an effective investigation. It is now nearly five years since the European Court of Human Rights made the first four of its rulings. The United Kingdom’s continuing failure to provide an effective investigation into these six cases has added unacceptably to the trauma and frustration the families have endured.
meeting with the smithwick inquiry
On 26th April I met Judge Peter Smithwick, who is chairing the public inquiry into the murders of RUC officers Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen in Dublin. This is the public inquiry recommended by Judge Cory and established by the Irish government under their equivalent of the Tribunals of Inquiry (evidence) Act 1921.
BIRW COMMENTS ON DRAFT INQUIRY RULES
We have submitted comments to the Department of Constitutional Affairs on the Draft Inquiry Procedure (UK Inquiries) Rules 2006. However, we have reiterated our fundamental opposition to the Inquiries Act 2005 because it takes away effective control of what used to be public inquiries from the hands of independent judges or other judicial figures and places it in the hands of government Ministers, regardless of whether that Minister or his or her department or agents may have been responsible for the matter under enquiry. We are not opposed to streamlining public inquiries or codifying rules for their conduct, but this erosion of the independence of inquiries into matters of public interest, in the true sense of that phrase, is unacceptable. It diminishes the notion of accountability of the part of public office holders and services and makes the United Kingdom less democratic. It also encourages impunity when those entrusted with extraordinary powers by the public abuse that trust.
DEVOLVING POLICING AND JUSTICE
BIRW submitted a response to the Northern Ireland Office’s consultation paper, Devolving Policing and Justice in Northern Ireland: A Discussion Paper. While BIRW broadly agreed with many of the proposals, we raised our concerns about several key elements of the paper. The proposed transference of primacy for intelligence from the PSNI to MI5 we thought was a step in the wrong direction, especially considering the hard work done by the police in building relationships with communities, and the complete absence of transparency and accountability of the security services. We urged the NIO to make explicit in any devolution plans, principles of human rights compliancy, as well as transparency and accountability. This is particularly pertinent considering the battering the criminal justice system has taken in recent years with cases such as Stormontgate.
HUMAN RIGHTS ON VIDEO
Our researcher Caroline Parkes attended a seminar on 27th April at the London School of Economics entitled ‘Using Video for Change: WITNESS’ model for human rights advocacy’, which demonstrated an interesting and innovative approach to human rights work.
1.5 MILLION VISIT OUR WEBSITE
This month the total number of visitors to our website since September 2000 crossed the 1.5 million mark. March 2006 saw the highest number of hits ever, with 73,737 visitors, compared to just 1,296 in September 2002. The average number of visitors for the first quarter of this year was 64,652. On 24th March 2006 we received the highest number of visitors ever in one day, 5,916.
Jane Winter,
Director,
28th April 2006.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
