|
|
|
JANUARY
2009
BIRW UPDATE
January 2009
birw human rights day appeal
We should like to thank everyone who responded to our annual Human Rights Day Appeal. So far, we have received £1,190, including a donation in memory of the late Robert Emmett Carmody of Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. If you have not yet sent us your donation, it is not too late. The address is BIRW, 13b Hillgate place, London SW12 9ES, or you can donate securely via our website: www.birw.org
book now for the patrick finucane anniversary conference
You can still book a place at our conference Patrick Finucane: His life and his legacy, which takes place at Trinity College Dublin on Saturday 14th February 2009. This conference marks the twentieth anniversary of the murder of Belfast lawyer Patrick Finucane. Details of the exciting conference programme and a booking form are available on our website, www.birw.org We should like to thank warmly the many individuals and organisations who have given financial and other suport for this event.
robert hamill inquiry opens
The Robert Hamill Inquiry opened on 13th January 2009, after a series of delays caused by challenges to the Inquiry’s ruling on anonymity by a number of police officers and by the length of time it took the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to decide that the Inquiry could consider the role of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Our observer Colleen Smyth’s report on the first three days of the hearing is available on our website.
rira membership case collapses
The case against four Derry men charged in the Republic of Ireland with RIRA membership has collapsed. The case raised the issue of whether the say-so of a police officer that someone is a member of a paramilitary group is enough to deprive that person of his or her liberty. Our thanks to Diane Forsyth for acting as our independent observer in the case: The State v Donelly, McDaid, Gallagher & O’Neill in the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
THE SECRET INQUEST RETURNS
BIRW produced a briefing for Members of Parliament on the provisions within the Coroners and Justice Bill. The focus of our concerns was the “secret inquests”, previously seen in the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008 but dropped in October 2008. Their re-appearance here has the potential to remove a layer of transparency from the coronial system, undermine faith in the justice system in the cases of deaths caused by the security forces and exclude families from finding out the full truth about their loved one’s death.
CONSULTATIVE GROUP ON THE PAST’S REPORT IS PUBLISHED
On 28th January the report of the Consultative Group on the Past (CPG) was launched in Belfast. Its proposal that the family of every victim of the conflict receive an ex gratia recognition payment of £12,000 was extensively leaked and rejected out of hand by those who subscribe to the idea that there is a hierarchy of victims, some of whom attempted to disrupt the event. In our view, such payments, which cannot bring back the dead, are made to the relatives of those who died, whose suffering cannot be placed on some notional sliding scale.
The thoughtful report produced by the CGG, which can be found at http://www.cgpni.org contains a number of more substantial proposals which are worthy of considered study. In particular, they have proposed a Legacy Commission, presided over by an international Commissioner, who will be assisted by two other Commissioners. This Commission will take over the work of the Historical Enquiries Team and the Police Ombudsman in dealing with deaths arising from the conflict, providing a truly independent investigation and, where no prosecution is possible (the majority of cases), the opportunity to try to recover the truth about the death through private intermediaries. There will also be a welcome focus on the needs of victims of the conflict. Although the government will never admit it, this proposal comes as near to a truth commission in a western democracy as we are ever likely to see.
BIRW will be responding to the government’s promised consultation exercise in due course, but, while generally speaking we welcome the CGP’s proposals, we do have a number of concerns. First, we do not think that the Legacy Commission’s proposed truth recovery mechanisms can substitute for the fully independent public inquiry recommended by Judge Cory and pledged by the government in the Finucane case. Secondly, we see no need for the government to review the on-going inquiries into the Nelson, Hamill and Wright cases. Thirdly, we are concerned that this government – or possibly the next one – will use the recession as an excuse for not implementing the CGP’s other, more helpful, proposals.
NGOs FRATERNISE WITH THE POLICE
On 22nd January our Researcher, Caroline Parkes, and Director, Jane Winter, attended a meeting with the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team in Belfast to discuss a number of matters of mutual interest and concern. We learned that, until such time as the recommendations of the Consultative Group on the Past are implemented, the HET will carry on as normal investigating conflict-related deaths. However, if the CGP’s proposals are adopted, then the HET is unlikely to investigate any deaths occurring after 1973, unless later cases have been taken out of chronological order for exceptional reasons.
BRIAN ROBINSON
The family of Brian Robinson has approached BIRW to investigate his death on 2 September 1989, by members of the security forces, in the Ardoyne area. He had been part of a two man team, who had killed Patrick McKenna, a few minutes earlier. The soldiers who killed Brian Robinson did not appear at the inquest into his death; as a result, there are many unanswered questions surrounding his death.
CHANGING THE FACE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
On 28th January Caroline Parkes attended a conference at the British Institute of Human Rights called “Changing the Face of Human Rights” which looked at, among topics, the media representation and public attitude towards human rights.
welcome to farook and rebecca
Welcome to Rebecca Brattskar, our new research intern, who joins us from Norway for six months; she will be working on our on-going project examining conflict-related deaths. Equally welcome is Farook Kholwadia, who is our new Administrative Assistant, who will be helping our Administrator, Elizabeth Folarin, to keep us in order.
30TH january 2009
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
