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JANUARY 2004
NORMAL SERVICE IS RESUMED
January has been a relatively quiet month owing to the surgery on my shoulder. However, I am glad to report that I am well on the way to recovery. Many thanks for the numerous messages of support I have received from well-wishers.
CORY SHAMES BRITISH GOVERNMENT
On 12th January Judge Peter Cory personally telephoned the families or representatives of Patrick Finucane, Robert Hamill, Billy Wright and Rosemary Nelson to inform them that he has indeed recommended public inquiries in all four cases. He clearly felt that the British government had delayed too long and that the victims deserved to be told as a matter of justice and of common humanity. On 20th January the Finucane family were granted leave to judicially review the failure of the government to publish Judge Cory’s report on their case. The Finucanes have been waiting almost 15 years for justice. The Hamill and Wright families have waited 7 years and the Nelson family nearly 5 years. There cannot be any excuse for any further delay in holding public inquiries. British Irish rights watch has sent a report to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on judges and lawyers concerning Judge Cory’s report and the responses of the British and Irish governments to them.
DUBLIN AND MONAGHAN BOMBINGS
BIRW has made a detailed submission to the Joint Oireachtas sub-committee which is examining Judge Baron’s report on the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings. We have argued that nothing short of a public inquiry is required in view of the many questions that Judge Baron was unable to resolve. The extraordinary indifference of the Irish government of the day to the bombings disclosed by the report cries out for explanation, as does the disappearance of key files from the Department of Justice. It is also imperative that the British government, who denied Judge Baron access to a large quantity of intelligence material, should be persuaded to divulge what it knows, especially in light of the judge’s conclusion that the bomb plot originated in Northern Ireland.
BIRW INTERVENES IN McKERR CASE
The House of Lords has given BIRW permission to intervene in the McKerr case, which will decide whether the Human Rights Act (which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law) applies in cases where a death comes within the ambit of Article 2 of the Convention, which protects the right to life. Gervaise McKerr was killed by the RUC in 1982, in one of the alleged shoot-to-kill incidents later investigated by John Stalker. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that there was no effective investigation into his death, but the UK says he has no right to such an investigation because he was killed before the Human Rights Act came into force. We say this cannot be right. The case will be heard on 2nd and 3rd February.
CALL FOR INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF FORENSIC EVIDENCE
We have written to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland calling for a comprehensive independent review of all convictions based on forensic evidence in Northern Ireland. A series of recent court cases have raised very serious questions about pressure brought to bear by the police on forensic scientists to alter their reports, non-disclosure of forensic evidence to defence lawyers, and deliberate contamination of forensic evidence by police officers. Our fear is that this type of malpractice was the rule rather than the exception, and that many convictions may be unsafe as a result.
CHRISTY WALSH
A case in which we have long had concerns about the forensic evidence is that of Christy Walsh, when the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal refused to acquit after his case was referred back to them by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. In our view, the forensic evidence allegedly linking him to the coffee jar bomb he was convicted of having in his possession was always far from convincing. However, the Criminal Cases Review Commission was unable to carry out their own forensic tests because when they asked to examine the jar it was said to have gone missing. We have asked the Secretary of State to establish an independent review of the original forensic reports and of the circumstances in which this vital piece of evidence disappeared.
HUMAN RIGHTS DAY APPEAL
Our annual Human Rights Day appeal has raised £3,120 so far. Very grateful thanks to all who have contributed, and especially to those who do so every year. If you have been meaning to send us a donation but have not got around to it, please get out the cheque book!
BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY REPORTS
Our apologies for the fact that, owing to a technical glitch, a number of our independent observer’s reports on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry hearings towards the end of 2003 were slow to reach our website. They are all there now, but January’s reports will not be there until the week of 9th February owing to a visit by our Administrative Assistant, who maintains the website, to Nigeria.
KEVIN ARTT
We have sent comments to American lawyers acting for Kevin Barry Artt, who is struggling to have his conviction during one of the notorious supergrass trials referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He has always denied the murder of prision governor Albert Miller in 1981. He was tried together with 37 other defendants. Although the supergrass Christopher Black did not actually testify against Kevin Artt, the court refused him the right to a separate trial, and he joined what was in effect a conveyor belt of injustice. He has been struggling for years to clear his name.
Jane Winter,
Director,
30 January 2004.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
