Letter: Supreme Court ruling in Dillon case is a major blow to the anti-state coalition

Now that we know that the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) can operate within the European Human Rights Convention, the question arises as to what happens to the types of litigation favoured by that coalition?

The impact of that work up to now is clear – though its cumulative nature is rarely commented upon: The coalition has marginalised and excluded the Protestant tradition and contributed decisively to the radicalisation of moderate nationalism.

The anti-state coalition styles itself as human rights oriented, but it is, in reality, a grouping of lawyers, academics and lobbyists who rarely, if ever, concern themselves with the human rights of the innocent victims of terrorists.

A 2025 job advert for the Committee On the Administration of Justice (CAJ) makes clear that a network exists. It states that the CAJ wished to employ a solicitor to ‘pursue non-legal strategic interventions in the [area] of legacy’ and who would run a ‘Legacy Practitioners Group with NGOs (including Amnesty NI, the Pat Finucane Centre, Relatives for Justice …), lawyers and academics to coordinate sectoral interventions and advocacy’.

These groups are entitled to their political opinions – yet all are also in receipt of some form of public money. It is difficult to see how any unionist victim would go to Relatives for Justice for advice when their deputy director writes about the DUP and the Orange Order having a ‘home-grown disorder’ – as was put to her by Philip Brett in the assembly in February past. The Pat Finucane Centre, meanwhile, states that its ‘remit is not restricted to any one community’, but presents truth recovery as linked to the ‘poisoned legacy of colonialism’.

The CAJ advert points to associated law firms – who may well also pursue cases against republicans. However, it would seem to me that they do not advertise this as widely as their anti-state representations: along with Dillon, Darragh Makin’s page on the Phoenix Law website mentions cases to do with the putative Glenanne gang, Loughgall, and Kneecap.

The overwhelming emphasis on anti-state would also, one would presume, give pause to any Catholic family affected by IRA terror. (Phoenix Law has represented Anthony McIntyre who was forced out of his home because of his criticisms of Gerry Adams – but he had previously served time because of terrorist activities and that specific case was against the PSNI.)

Individuals have the right to seek whatever kind of representation they wish, but in the interests of reconciliation (and in line with the parity of esteem that applies to most of the rest of Northern Ireland), introducing non-single-identity work thresholds for drawing down legal aid, might do something to mitigate the cumulative effect of lawfare.

Much of the responsibility for costs lies with Naomi Long’s Department for Justice – though legacy and the ICRIR fall under the remit of Dublin and London. All three have a shared interest in reconciliation. The establishment of a fund that innocent victims could draw from to pursue terrorists and their estates would be an alternative to the present anti-state focus.

Requiring that lawyers work for the public good is clearly not something to be left to lawyers. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision, Micheal Martin stated that ‘there’s no need …[for] the two governments … to engage in confidence-building measures’. Instead of such reactive thoughts, perhaps the governments could think about how to head-off single-identity lawyering – and stop it from next infesting the ICRIR.

Dr Cillian McGrattan, a member of the Malone House Group, writing in a personal capacity