Ministers must argue for proportionality in legacy investigations

In fact, the highest court in the land declined to order a public inquiry into the 1989 murder by loyalists, as the Finucane family had sought.

However, Lord Kerr, speaking for all of the judges, did find that there had been no investigation into the murder that was compliant with Article Two of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life.

The ex Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice added that “it does not follow that a public inquiry of the type which the appellant seeks must be ordered. It is for the state to decide, in light of the incapacity of de Silva’s review and the inquiries which preceded it to meet the procedural requirement of article Two, what form of investigation, if indeed any is now feasible, is required in order to meet that requirement”.

Given the way that the court’s assessment of Article Two has been seized on immediately by activists and politicians to demand a Finucane inquiry, the government has a duty to outline why no such investigation is now feasible or required.

Britain must challenge the proportionality of meeting the most rigorous interpretations of Article Two, decades later, in deaths which often happened in the early days of a terror campaign to which the state was scrambling to respond.

A vast amount of public cash has now been spent on one murder, that of Mr Finucane, and millions more might yet be spent on inquests into historic killings by state forces. But as our report on page 7 from a packed event in Newry this week shows, there is deep well of unresolved terror cases that also need a scrutiny they have not had (and will not get).

We have repeatedly heard in recent years that these legacy inquests must be funded, without any explanation as to why they must be mini inquiries.

Perhaps the Supreme Court judgement will now be used to justify that approach, but if so ministers must respond that due to finite funds and a need for overall balance they cannot accept such an assessment.