Troubles legacy law did not diminish victims’ rights, Supreme Court rules; five Supreme Court justices unanimously allow government’s challenge
Parts of a law that ended police investigations and inquests related to the Troubles did not lead to victims’ rights being diminished, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The 2023 Legacy Act was introduced by the previous Conservative government and offered conditional immunity for perpetrators of some Troubles crimes in exchange for co-operation with a new body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), which would oversee investigations.
The Labour Government has since introduced a new Bill to Parliament to overhaul the Act, with MPs already voting to repeal the conditional immunity provision and scrap a bar on future legacy compensation cases as the new Bill is still being debated.
Northern Ireland’s High Court and the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal (NICA) had both previously found that parts of the Act were incompatible with human rights and also undermined the rights of victims in breach of the Windsor Framework, which was signed following the UK’s leaving the EU.
The framework states that the Government must ensure that various rights and entitlements in Northern Ireland, enshrined by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, cannot be diminished.
Despite efforts to change the law, the Northern Ireland Office still took the case to the Supreme Court over the application of the Windsor Framework, telling a hearing last October that the issue was “constitutionally profound”.
Four Troubles victims – Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Brigid Hughes and Lynda McManus – opposed the challenge, with their lawyers telling the UK’s highest court that NICA was “plainly correct”.
In a ruling on Thursday, five Supreme Court justices unanimously allowed the Government’s challenge.
Lords Reed, Hodge, Lloyd-Jones, Hamblen and Stephens said in their 77-page judgment that four victims were “unable to establish that the 2023 Act led to a diminution of rights”.
Reading a summary of the judgment at the court in London, Lord Stephens said that around 1,200 killings during the Troubles remain unsolved.
Gavin Booth of law firm Phoenix Law, which represents the victims, said that the ruling was “disappointing” and had “left victims and families in a state of flux”, adding that his clients could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Grainne Teggart, Northern Ireland deputy director at Amnesty International UK, which intervened in the case, said the ruling was a “bitter blow to victims” and a “tipping point for truth and transparency”.
She said: “Today’s judgment does nothing to relieve victims of the burden of the conflict. The past will remain the present until new legislation ends their trauma and delivers long overdue answers.”
She continued: “This judgment is not the final word. We call on the UK Parliament to stand firmly with victims and ensure the Government’s new Troubles Bill delivers for them. The Bill must end impunity and guarantee effective investigations.”
The Legacy Act was introduced despite opposition from all the main political parties at Stormont and the Irish government.
The Supreme Court was told in court documents that 20 legal challenges were launched against the legislation “within days” of its introduction, with the case of Ms Dillon, Mr McEvoy, Ms Hughes and Ms McManus heard in 2023.
Ms Dillon’s husband, Seamus, was shot dead by loyalists in Dungannon in 1997, and Ms Hughes’ husband, Anthony, was killed by security forces in Loughgall in 1987.
Mr McEvoy and Ms McManus’ father, James, were both seriously injured when attacked by loyalists in 1992 in Kilcoo and Belfast, respectively.
In February 2024, Mr Justice Colton found that the conditional immunity provision within the Act breached victims’ human rights, and that parts of the Act could be disapplied under the Windsor Framework.
The Government did not appeal against the findings on human rights but did challenge other aspects of the judgment, including those about the framework.
Its appeal was unsuccessful, with the NICA ruling in September 2024 that the Act created a “diminution” of rights for victims.
It also found that a Government veto power over what sensitive material can be disclosed to bereaved families by the ICRIR was unlawful as it prevented its investigations from being compatible with human rights.
But Sir James Eadie KC, for the Government, said in written submissions for the three-day Supreme Court hearing that the NICA’s finding on the effect of the framework was not its “true legal effect”.
He also said that the veto power “only relates to disclosure of sensitive information that would risk prejudicing national security” and that it was “not objectionable in principle, or incompatible, for that decision to be taken by the executive”.
John Larkin KC, for the victims, said the findings of the courts were “plainly correct” and that there was “no error of law” by the NICA.
He continued that the ICRIR was “structurally incapable of ensuring that the next of kin or victim must be involved in the procedure to the extent necessary to safeguard his or her legitimate interests”.
But the five justices also allowed the Government’s challenge against the NICA ruling related to the ICRIR, stating that the victims “cannot establish” that the Government’s veto power would mean the body “will lack independence”, and that even if it did, they could not prove that this would “result in there being an ineffective investigation”.
The Act was already being reviewed by the time of the Supreme Court hearing, with the Labour Government, in co-operation with the Irish government, presenting the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill to Parliament last year.
This would repeal and replace the Legacy Act and end the immunity scheme, instead installing a reformed Legacy Commission with enhanced powers.
While the Bill has not been fully debated or passed by Parliament, it will continue to be debated in the next parliamentary session after MPs backed a carry-over motion.