Jeff Dudgeon: Underhand bid to stop Gerry Adams getting damages shows that the governing elite is still frightened of Irish republican terrorism

I write about a decision of the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) at Westminster and its implications on plans to deny Gerry Adams compensation.

The JCHR has agreed, exceptionally, that the Northern Ireland Office may proceed by a remedial order to remove large sections of the Conservatives 2023 Legacy Act without recourse to primary legislation even though its Troubles Bill is now before parliament and has received a second reading in the House of Commons. [The JCHR comprises six MPs and six peers, and is chaired by Lord Alton of Liverpool. Its Draft Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025: second report, HC 1438/HL Paper 227 was published on 9 December 2025.]

The Malone House Group in Belfast – an NGO recognised by the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg – objects strongly to the joint committee’s view that: “In other similar circumstances, we would be highly likely to conclude that it would not be constitutionally appropriate for a government to seek to use a remedial order when there is a bill on the same subject matter before parliament. However, we acknowledge the unusually delicate nature of the policies regarding Northern Ireland legacy…The policies in question are central to the government’s attempts to sustain the peace process in Northern Ireland and to healing the wounds caused by decades of vicious conflict.”

Here we have it. Parliament will behave exceptionally – indeed unconstitutionally – when it comes to Northern Ireland, because the governing elite is still frightened of republican terrorism.

In relation to Gerry Adams’s compensation (which the Malone House Group helped oppose), the JCHR agreed with the NI Courts in the Dillon case when a declaration of incompatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was made on the sections in the 2023 Act which denied him compensation for internment in the 1970s. (The breach of Adams's rights supposedly occurred when the wrong NIO minister signed his custody order.)

On the advice of Lord Hermer, the attorney general, the initial version of Labour’s remedial order removed those sections and reinstated the Adams payment, thus enabling another 100 ex-internees who later lodged similar claims. Lord Hermer is no longer allowed to advise on legacy matters after it was discovered he had represented Gerry Adams in a London civil case. The NIO however silently removed the Adams payment from the second version of the remedial order and is now maintaining the ban through clauses 89 and 90 of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill.

Amazingly, nowhere in the 54-page report does the joint committee even mention that the Labour government, like its Conservative predecessor, is seeking to prevent Gerry Adams claiming compensation – despite the Northern Ireland courts determining the ban breached his ECHR rights.

Why do these MPs and peers at Westminster not have the courage to state that the NI courts got it wrong and that Labour is finally taking the same approach to Adams as the Tories did, albeit now in an underhand way? Being human rights experts, surely they realise that Adams and the others will head straight to Strasbourg with the Belfast court decision in their back pockets and make a successful case to overturn Labour’s new legislation?

Jeffrey Dudgeon, Convenor of the Malone House Group