Editorial: Disgraceful Supreme Court ruling on Gerry Adams to be belatedly negated by government
In 2020 the UK’s highest court disgraced itself in a ruling on Gerry Adams.
It quashed the ex Sinn Fein president’s convictions for trying to escape the Maze prison. In a judgement that was derided in legal and political circles, the Supreme Court found that Mr Adams had not been legally interned in 1973 because his detention had not been considered by the then Northern Ireland secretary, William Whitelaw. But legislation that brought in internment, as terrorism in NI was escalating, specifically let junior ministers authorise detention.
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Hide AdThe judgement moved from the merely atrocious, in terms of its content, to the disgraceful because not one judge disagreed with the ruling, which was written by the ex NI lord chief justice, the late Lord Kerr. Not one of the supposedly most brilliant legal minds in the land could see what was obvious to, among others, Richard Ekins, Oxford University law professor, or Lord Butler, once head of the UK civil service, or Lord Howell, an NIO minister at the time.
Yet if you had followed most media coverage of this ruling you would have thought it was yet further proof of a rogue British system of justice during the Troubles. The News Letter was one of the only outlets to pick up on the work of the think tank Policy Exchange in flagging up the implications of the ruling, which among other things torpedoed the system of delegating decisions in government. We covered other outrage at the decision such as Trevor Ringland who said it walked on the graves of judges murdered by the IRA (see links below).
London plans to negate the ruling in its legacy bill. This is welcome but overdue and does not alter how legacy is all about shutting down gains for republicans. It is never about putting pressure on republicans who chase through the courts the UK for its long, patient and mild response to terror.