Northern Ireland Troubles: Government’s proposed legacy bill will not hold killers accountable and is ‘perpetrator focused’ MPs told

Peter Murtagh, advocacy support manager at victims’ group South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), told MPs today that the lack of accountability for killers in the bill “has never been addressed”.

The NI Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill offers immunity from prosecution to people who co-operate with the proposed information retrieval body, however, the bill has been opposed by the majority of victims’ groups and political parties.

It passed its second reading last month with the support of Tory MPs, who hope it will end “vexatious” action veterans who served in NI. 

Giving evidence to the NI Committeeon the bill yesterday, Mr Murtagh, said: “One of the biggest issues that isn’t covered [in the bill] is accountability - and that has never been addressed.”

He said that victims “ultimately want justice” or at least “some form of accountability” for what happened to them. “And there is nothing within this that provides that for them.”

He added: “We have been told by the NIO that if someone is identified and it reaches the balance of probabilities, then they will be identified and named in the report.”But he said the majority of victims know why their loved one was killed, the group responsible, where and how it happened - information the bill could offer killers immunity from prosecution for providing.

“But what they want to know is who was responsible, and not only the main perpetrators but also the terrorist godfather who directed and coordinated those attacks.

“And to us that cannot be delivered. There will be lots of legal challenges - we feel - in relation to people claiming that their life will be put in danger if they are named. So it won’t deliver that accountability.”

There are also fears of perpetrators seeking to “continually justify their acts of violence and glorification” he said. He referred to the case of a victim who lost a leg in an under-car bomb who was “ridiculed daily” by the person responsible.

Sandra Peake, of the Wave Trauma Centre, said victims and survivors are “fearful for what is going to come”.“They’re fearful that people will get immunity and approach them,” she told MPs.

“There’s an intimacy of violence in Northern Ireland that is seldom understood, that sometimes the people who are the perpetrators are living in the next street or they see you at church or at the shops and they wink at you, they jeer at you, they let you know they are still there – and that is before any immunity comes,” The PA news agency reported her as saying.

“There is a fundamental issue here that is deeply unfair to victims and survivors, and that concept of fear is very real for people today and then that plays into how government treat them, because if there is lack of information, speculation, and this is drip-fed, this becomes very difficult and wholly unacceptable for victims and survivors.“What people read from this Bill is the power lies with the perpetrator, it doesn’t lie with the victim or the survivor, the power lies with the perpetrator.

“This is perpetrator-friendly, it is perpetrator-focused and ultimately the perpetrator will win from this – it won’t be the family.”

Ms Peake said victims are also scared that, once granted immunity, perpetrators will embark on lecture tours and write books about their pasts.

“We need to protect our victims and survivors, and we need to ensure that they’re looked after, but giving an immunity is not looking after them – giving an immunity is putting the perpetrator in charge of them and in charge of the version of truth, their truth, that they will share,” she added.

Victims Commissioner Ian Jeffers said many in the sector felt their engagement with the Northern Ireland Office on the Bill was a “transfer of information” rather than a consultation.

In an earlier session, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commissioner Alyson Kilpatrick said the main aim of the Bill is to channel all investigations, prosecutions, civil claims, inquests and police complaints into one body, and expressed concern that the investigations are being turned into reviews.She described a “very substantial interference with the rule of law”, and also voiced concern at the lack of distinction between crimes for which a person can be granted immunity, including murder, kidnap, rape and torture.

“What it also means is police will be prevented from investigating, the courts will be prevented from ruling, prosecutions will be prevented … that is a very substantial interference with the rule of law and with everything the UK has signed up to,” she told MPs.

“On its face, it clearly isn’t (human rights-compliant), it’s clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act.

“We have gone through this Bill in real detail, piece by piece and also as a whole, to see whether there is anything redeeming in it that could be made compatible or could save this Bill from being found to be incompatible.

“We cannot see a way in which the Bill can be made compatible when taken as a whole.”

Kenny Donaldson, SEFF’s Director of Services and Spokesman for Innocent Victims United, said his test for any process is whether it is likely to improve outcomes for victims.

In a statement ahead of the hearing, he said: “As the Bill stands, we do not see this as an outworking. Victims and survivors must be supported in reclaiming control, the net outcome of the process as presented could well be the reverse; their further disempowerment”.

“We continue to engage robustly with the Government on the Bill and related issues, this is not us involved in co-design of the Bill, our position is well known but we also believe it to be reckless to opt out of engagement on issues which are of such critical importance to victims and survivors. Over the next number of days we will be speaking with a wide spectrum of MP’s and members of The House of Lords.

“The emphasis of this Bill must be upon delivering Accountability, perpetrators do not feel sufficient heat through this Bill’s design and this must urgently be redressed. We please with the UK Government not to accelerate this process, show due diligence - law made in haste is often bad law for those impacted - and none of us can afford to further fail victims/survivors,” he added.