Proposals to cover up the past breach elementary human rights and received wisdom built up over a generation. By Christopher Stanley. Through the pall of a pandemic Patrick Corrigan,  Northern Ireland Programme Director for Amnesty International UK, wrote in the Belfast Telegraph (19 April 2020), on the current crisis wrought by the coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic and the importance of learning lessons from it. He noted, eloquently and compellingly, that we could emerge from it into a society where politics and society cohere around human rights.  He concluded: Such a human-rights-based approach to government can help us forge a better, shared Northern Ireland and build upon the strong bonds of social solidarity so evident in our current crisis. When we finally emerge from the curse of coronavirus – and we will – what a legacy that would be. (Belfast Telegraph) Human Rights lie at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement 1998. They are embodied in its letter and spirit. Patrick Corrigan wrote about the commitment to a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland which was contained in the GFA and is now being revisited under the British government’s New Decade, New Approach document which guides the devolved administration at Stormont. Human Rights must be the core of the out-workings of the Legacy of the Conflict in Northern Ireland. The current pandemic will alter the landscape of our jurisdiction when it is finally defeated. It will change our attitudes and perceptions, needs and priorities. It may open a possibility where the violent Legacy of Past in Northern Ireland, which haunts the present and determines the future, can at last be sutured after years of contested narratives of truth about what happened here between 1969 and 1998.For what many of those – relatives of the victims and the survivors and their families – want is truth. Many also want justice and accountability but at the fore is to know why a death or an injury happened. It is not about retribution or reparation. It is about being able to move forward with the past  – bear in mind these dead.   Before the pandemic crisis, the British government published its latest approach to the Legacy of the Conflict. The proposals are a dramatic departure from a) the Stormont House Agreement 2014 (SHA) and b) the attitude towards the Legacy that was taken by the most recent Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Smith). The position of the British government now is to conflate a specific narrative (an interpretation of the Conflict) with a swift Draconian measure to finally sever the present from the past and to protect one particular group of perpetrators/victims – the agents of the state. At present these agents are British Army Veterans but they will inevitably eventually include all members of the British Security Forces, including those from paramilitary organisations used as agents or informers. This political positioning will cause resentment and resistance in Northern Ireland. The intention is to introduce: A new independent body [that] will conduct swift, final examinations of all the unresolved deaths. Only those cases where there is new compelling evidence and a realistic prospect of a prosecution will be investigated. Once cases have been considered there will be a legal bar on any future investigation occurring. This will end the cycle of reinvestigations for the families of victims and veterans alike.This new approach seeks to put victims first with information recovery and reconciliation as the overarching goal – with a way forward that delivers for all those affected by the legacy of the Troubles and enables all sides of the community to continue to reconcile and prosper. In these two short paragraphs, the British government lays bear an intent which has been clearly seen in some sections of the Tory party since the GFA and which has been articulated by some of the inhabitants of Hillsborough Castle (Patterson, Villiers,  Bradley). The end will be swift and final. There is a hierarchy of victims. Veterans (agents of the state and British Security Forces deployed or recruited (as agents or informers) during the Conflict) become victims if they face arrest and prosecution. Therefore they will be granted immunity. The evidential threshold is high;’‘compelling evidence” and “realistic prospect of prosecution”. After years of being consulted, the people of Northern Ireland were faced before the present lockdown with a stark reminder of the way Westminster/Whitehalll saw Northern Ireland as ’good soldier’ and ‘bad terrorist’ – all other contested narratives being ‘pernicious’. In Northern Ireland there was a robust civil society reaction of disapproval.  For example, Relatives for Justice (RFJ) said: These measures will further deepen divisions in society and will certainly not aid any measure of reconciliation – they will aggravate existing hurts and wounds and will be seen as further evidence of a systemic cover-up of British State crimes. This will be challenged on every level by families including in the domestic and European Courts. For example, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) and  a group of academics from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) analysed the British government’s new proposals against a three-point test: a. The extent to which it is consistent with binding domestic and international human rights obligations, in particular Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to an effective investigation into conflict-related deaths.b. The extent to which it is compatible with the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), the cornerstone of the Northern Ireland peace process.c. The extent to which it is compatible with the Stormont House Agreement. Although the design of that (SHA) is complex, it was arrived at after months of tortuous negotiations between the two governments and the five largest political parties, and it remains the closest we have come to a workable consensus on dealing with the legacy of the past since the GFA of 1998. On each test the proposals of the British government is setting itself up to fail. Just as the English politicians and their Whitehall civil servants knew they would. In the words of RFJ: Throughout the statement … Continue reading The pall is lifting on Northern Ireland’s Legacy stitch-up.