Dealing with the Past – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

The unintended consequences of an amnesty for security forces are forensically exposed

Brian Walker on May 12, 2018, 12:21 am

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The case for a selective amnesty for former security forces is powerfully refuted by the leading lawyer in the field Professor Kieran Mc Evoy of Queen’s in a Guardian article ( see below). Clearly someone got to Theresa May after Wednesday’s PMQs to make her change her mind. She did a similar U- turn yesterday over nominating two lay assessors to sit with the retired judge in parts of the Grenfell fire inquiry. The same scary changeability can be seen …

With all respect to concerned former soldiers, Theresa May is right to see off last minute demands for a selective amnesty

Brian Walker on May 11, 2018, 8:25 pm

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After appearing to side with her Defence Secretary on Wednesday in favouring a selective amnesty for former security forces in Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister has thought the better of it as the long delayed consultation on the Legacy Bill was launched. We are in the peculiar position of Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill broadly welcoming the Bill, while the DUP leader Arlene Foster contemplates a legal challenge to the High Court ruling that she wasn’t entitled to refuse to submit a …

Superpatriotic ministers claim bias against soldiers in new Troubles investigations

Brian Walker on May 9, 2018, 1:42 pm

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Update.. May appears to back amnesty for former security forces At Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, Mrs May said the issue of a statute of limitations was “very important”. “At its heart, is the support and gratitude that we owe all those who have served in our armed forces,” she said. “The situation we have at the moment is that the only people being investigated for these issues are those in our armed forces or those who served in law enforcement …

New revelations about the Ballymurphy massacre require urgent action by the British government

Brian Walker on May 2, 2018, 2:24 pm

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The report Mick highlights of a UVF sniper firing into Ballymurphy at the time of the massacre in 1971 for which up to now 1 Para was believed to be mainly responsible, underlines the paramount importance of finding out basic facts in dealing with the past. As I argued the other day, it is not only unacceptable but self-defeating for armchair soldiers in today’s battle of the narratives to thwart the rule of law, whether they are unionists defending the …

On the legacy deadlock, equality before the law for the security forces is not moral equivalence with the IRA

Brian Walker on April 30, 2018, 3:49 pm

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Ruth Dudley Edwards has just commended “Legacy: What To Do About The Past in Northern Ireland”, a short book by Unionist councillor and redoubtable human right campaigner Jeff Dudgeon, edited mainly from the contributions at the conference on legacy legislation he organised in Belfast on March 3rd. As you’d expect, Ruth shares the passionately held view that the UK’s so far unseen draft Legacy Bill is based on a flawed approach developed by the traditional justice academic lawyers who to …

I voted for peace, and all I got was this lousy culture war

Claire Mitchell on April 15, 2018, 9:55 am

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I found this week’s 20 year commemoration of the Agreement quite surreal. Maybe it was because I was sick at home in my pyjamas and missed out on the bling of the big events. No basking in the glow of disgraced elderly politicians for me… Instead, I was more struck by how sad and stuck everything feels right now. It feels like we voted for peace, but all we got was this lousy culture war. By culture war, in this …

A revised Belfast Agreement is needed more than nostalgia for 1998

Brian Walker on April 2, 2018, 4:31 pm

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Like Magna Carta, the Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement has acquired the status of icon of the constitution. This is not altogether in its favour. A good deal of nonsense is talked about Magna Carta. Back in 1215, no sooner had the ink dried on the vellum of the fair copy, than bad King John denounced it. But the idea of curbing the unbridled power of the monarch could not be unborn and it finally evolved into government by the rule …

To check Sinn Fein winning the propaganda war, a general amnesty should replace prosecutions in exchange for official disclosure, say unionist legal experts, arguing for the scrapping of the government’s Legacy Bill

Brian Walker on March 14, 2018, 1:26 pm

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“Transitional justice has facilitated republicans turning what ought to have been a hostile environment (namely, the historical record of over 2,000 attributable deaths, almost 60 percent of the total murder count, in a sectarian campaign of assassination and bombings – not to mention the accompanying litany of bloodshed, unblinking cruelty and lives destroyed) into a fertile soil allowing them to sustain a campaign of commemoration on ‘an industrial scale. (The approach has) saturated thinking about the past to such an …

Evaluating the Peace

Soapbox on March 10, 2018, 1:23 pm

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Seán Brennan, from QUB, evaluates the state of our current peace… As the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement (GFA) approaches, much talk will focus on celebrating or condemning – in other words evaluating – our ‘peace process’. When evaluating Northern Ireland’s experience of peace, it may surprise some to learn that our experiences are not universally viewed as a success. In fact, it would be fair to say the ‘liberal peace’ – which is what we have …

More than the leadership of Arlene Foster it’s about what the DUP under unprecedented pressure, is for

Brian Walker on March 8, 2018, 12:12 pm

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In “Arlene Foster’s authority is ebbing away“, Newton assesses the pressure on her in the Irish Times. His fascinating analysis is the latest example of local Kremlinology peering into the suffocatingly tight networks that dominate these little parties. But new outside elements are at play as never before to supplement rapid change at home , like the unpredictable fallout of Brexit and pressures for social change from London and Dublin. But for these pressures to have full effect, they must …

“where reconciliation is a selective process, healing a pernicious and destabilising past remains as a challenge to us all.”

Mick Fealty on February 27, 2018, 5:55 pm

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It’s had a muted response, both here on Slugger and in the wider media but this intervention from a group of Civic Unionists and unaligned others makes some senior points about the way NI politics is conducted as though they did not exist. I hope we’ll have a direct contribution from the group here on Slugger, but for now here’s the text… “We the undersigned desire a transparent and inclusive debate concerning rights, truth, equality and civil liberties and in …

The draft agreement revealed: So far but yet so near

Brian Walker on February 19, 2018, 11:19 am

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The cats have been let out of the bag thanks to the sources of Eamonn Mallie and Barney Rowan, (Sinn Fein?). From documents of “a dozen pages or so plus annexes and separate agreements,” we pick up the story below from a week ago last Friday. The secretary of state will no doubt be questioned on the details in a statement on the talks failure when the Commons resumes tomorrow. The Sinn Fein leadership will meet Theresa May on Wednesday …

‘Cross Community Projects’ are Outdated in Today’s Northern Ireland

Finn Purdy on February 13, 2018, 7:14 pm

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The concept of a polarisation of politics is one often talked about in today’s society, and in Brexit Britain and Trump’s America and so many other cases it is easy to see evidence of this polarisation. People follow different narratives that offer different (or alternative) facts and there is a demonised view of the motives of politicians that you do not agree with. In Northern Ireland polarisation of politics is nothing new to us, and it continues to this day …

The British government are contemplating an all-round amnesty, claims Denis Bradley. If so, it’a too hot to handle for the local parties and should become a big ticket item for Westminster

Brian Walker on February 2, 2018, 11:46 am

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Denis Bradley has been spelling out a basic home truth about dealing with the past in discussion on BBC NI’s The View with his partner in the still definitive Eames Bradley report. “Tough love” for victims is overdue. Writing in the Irish News, he has also made some startling assertions. That families should be given truth pertains to knowing what and why a death or injury happened during the four decades of the troubles. But there is something out and …

At the sharpest end of dealing with the past, whatever the arguments, the Haggarty case takes your breath away

Brian Walker on January 29, 2018, 7:49 pm

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A Loyalist “supergrass” who admitted the murders of five people among hundreds of offences has had a 35-year jail term reduced to six-and-a-half years for helping the police. Gary Haggarty, 45, was a former leader of an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) unit in north Belfast. Haggarty was a paid police informer for 11 years The judgment from Belfast Crown Court indicated that the 35-year jail term was reduced by 75% for the assistance given to prosecutors and then a further …

Arlene Foster may be called to court to defend blocking the funding of legacy inquests – a key issue between the DUP and Sinn Fein

Brian Walker on January 29, 2018, 6:54 pm

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With exquisite timing for the renewed political talks, a case of judicial review in the High Court has resumed which alleges that “former First Minister Arlene Foster unlawfully blocked Executive discussion of a funding plan aimed at clearing a backlog of legacy inquests for purely political reasons.” The charge has lain at her door for almost two years and she may yet be called to court to defend it. In an earlier session the judge dismissed Mrs Foster’s bid to …

The Loughinisland appeal, when “withdrawal” is not “recusal”

Brian Walker on January 27, 2018, 11:21 am

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Now I may have been dreaming but I’m almost sure I read yesterday that Mr Justice McCloskey had announced he was still sticking with the Loughinisland appeal case, in spite of the objections from the lawyers representing the families and the police ombudsman. But no. I woke up to this morning to learn he had in fact withdrawn. Reporting howler in jumping the gun? Maybe. But then there’s that legal language of fine distinction but crucially different meaning like “ …

Dramatic turn over bid to quash the police ombudsman’s Loughinisland report

Brian Walker on January 19, 2018, 12:23 pm

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Pressure is mounting on Mr Justice McCloskey to withdraw from the hearing to quash the police ombudsman’s report on the Loughinisland murders. The bid was made by lawyers including the recently retired director of public prosecutions Barra McGrory. Last week the judge had already deferred a ruling to allow a new lawyer for the police ombudsman to read himself into the case. This has turned out to be the former DPP. Newly instructed counsel for the Ombudsman, Barra McGrory QC, …

Time for nationalism to provide representation based on an expansion of the future for ALL the people of Northern Ireland

Mick Fealty on January 13, 2018, 11:31 am

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So Brian’s cartoon made the News Letter’s editorial yesterday. I’ve only ever cited a leading article on a handful of occasions but this is worth noting… On one hand, it’s just a statement of what ought already to be obvious. But after a year of Sinn Fein propaganda, a lot of people seem to have been convinced that the strange disappearance of the Institutions of the Good Friday Agreement has no tangible cause. Others uncritically take SF’s line that we are …

Neither Catholic nor Protestant they are “Northern Irish dead” and we owe them all, not just some…

Mick Fealty on January 12, 2018, 5:47 pm

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Reconciliation statue Photo by Amanda Slater

It says everything about our inability to deal with our past that we have almost everything – up to and including cynical manipulation of narrow political interests – short of a public acknowledgment of the distress and the need for help common to all… Noel Whelan in the Irish Times today writes: There is no reason why we should feel the need to segregate the victims of the Troubles into Protestant and Catholic like their killers did. Those killed in the …