Sometimes old grievances are best laid to rest. That was certainly the view of Tony Blair when his government issued nearly 200 ‘comfort letters’ to Irish nationalist gunmen in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. But a decision by the Northern Ireland High Court on Wednesday will upend that principle, setting back years of compromise and reconciliation.
For some time it has been all but impossible to prosecute IRA men for murders committed during the Troubles. British security forces, however, remain vulnerable, although most are now in their seventies and long retired. One, indeed, died during a trial last year, one suspects partly from the trauma of being dragged through the courts over political events taking place before some of the lawyers involved were born.
Last July, following the collapse of the trial of two other septuagenarians for alleged Troubles offences, the government bit the bullet. It accepted the one-sidedness of the present arrangements and allowed Brandon Lewis to announce an effective legislative amnesty for all pre-Good Friday Agreement offences on both sides. Taking the hint, the Ulster prosecution service discontinued proceedings against six other soldiers it was then pursuing.
The end of a sorry story, perhaps? Unfortunately no. Quite apart from the nationalist howls of anguish that they were losing their useful ability to wrongfoot the British government at any time just by mouthing the words ‘justice for victims’, the promised amnesty legislation has got bogged down, as a frustrated Brandon Lewis was forced to admit to Troubles veterans a couple of weeks ago. And, as if this was not enough, on Wednesday the High Court in Belfast accepted the arguments of republican activists and struck down the decision not to prosecute one veteran, known as Soldier F, as ‘irrational’. There was, it said, a possibility of enough admissible evidence being available to convict him; and, the court added, insufficient reasons had been given to the victims’ relatives under the EU victims’ rights legislation to justify their decision.
Legalities aside, this is very bad news for justice and reconciliation.
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