Editorial: Peers rightly point to the role of the European Convention of Human Rights in the anti-security forces imbalance in legacy investigations

​Some of the best speeches on the legacy of terrorism have been made in the House of Lords.

​On Wednesday peers delivered a number of good addresses peers in a debate on the government’s approach to what is called the legacy of the Troubles, but what we call the legacy of terror, given that terrorists started and sustained the violence.

Much of the media coverage of that Lords discussion was on the words of Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the former police ombudsman who brought the motion. Unionist peers have previously cited Baroness O’Loan approvingly in their criticisms of the last government’s Legacy Act, as if this showed that there was common ground with her on legacy.

But this is like the DUP and UUP having let the current Labour government say that all the main NI parties are united on legacy because they all opposed the act, which proposed a conditional amnesty for many Troubles killings. That alleged unity also gave cover to the Irish government, which has had the nerve to sue the UK on legacy when Ireland has been allowed (in part by unionists and the previous government in the years around the Stormont House Agreement) to evade its own legacy responsibilities.

For example, Ireland’s stubborn extradition refusals over 25 years, which continued after the Anglo Irish Agreement, in effect helped the IRA sectarian murder of many border Protestants.

Now finally, and in the Lords debate on Wednesday night, there is an appropriate focus on the role of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) in this anti-state focus in legacy.

Whenever you hear Article two of the ECHR, which protects the right to life cited, be clear that what you are really hearing is an attempt to claim that all security force killings are illegal, and so imply that the state were the bad guys, not the terrorists. ​​