Troubles being ‘continued by legal means’ MPs told

Dr Austen Morgan of the Malone House Group also said he fears “more of the same” if a new independent commission, as described in the government’s new legacy bill, is established.

Addressing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Dr Morgan said: “They succeeded in establishing peace after 1998. Republican violence was brought to an end in 2005, but the propaganda war, as [former ACC] Chris Albiston referred to it, was not brought to an end.

“So essentially we have our criminal justice system used by legacy litigators to continue the Troubles through legal means, not using violence, and that has had a very corrupting effect on the criminal justice system.

“And it is my concern that the criminal justice system should be no further corrupted.

“There is the possibility of more of the same if we have the independent commission.

“There will be attempts to challenge its decisions, there will be attempts to go to courts outside the United Kingdom to challenge its decisions, there will be lobbying exercises in the European Union.

“More and more and more of this will happen until there are counter-forces which will seek to get a good criminal justice system functioning in Northern Ireland.”

Dr Morgan added: “Simultaneously we have intellectuals, ideologists, academics, who will actually start contributing to the writing of the history of the Troubles, because all we have had is the rewriting of the Troubles in a very monotone, narrow-minded way.”

Dr Morgan went on to say: “We have had a complete shift away from the real perpetrators of murder to the state agents who were tasked with stopping it.

“And that is why we have had since 2015, a parade of aged and ill, and indeed dying, soldiers in courts in Northern Ireland that never had any prospect, and have got nowhere.”

Dr Anna Bryson from the School of Law and Model Bill Team, Queen’s University Belfast, told the committee she believes the government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill is unlawful.

“In our view these proposals are unlawful and a breach of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement,” she told the cross-party group of MPs.

“And indeed, by giving a British minister the capacity to reach far and wide and deep into the justice landscape – closing down access to civil actions, to inquests, to Troubles-related prosecutions, police complaints and so forth, we feel that it is also an assault on the hard-won devolution of policing and justice.”

Dr Bryson also described the bill as a “deeply cynical” piece of legislation that was “retraumatising people”.

Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) and a member of the Model Bill Team also gave evidence to the committee.

He said the “bill isn’t fixable,” and added: “You would probably have to change everything in the bill to make it work.”

Jeffrey Dudgeon of the Malone House Group also gave evidence to the committee.

READ: New Troubles body ‘must avoid repeat of some watchdog fiascos’