A further sixteen legal challenges against the British government’s Legacy Act have been lodged with the European Court of Human Rights.
The latest challenges bring to more than 30 the number of legal objections against the controversial act , including an “inter-state application” brought by the Irish government. The NI Legacy Act offers conditional amnesties for murders, attacks and other offences from the Troubles.
Solicitor, Patricia Coyle, of Harte, Coyle, Collins, said the act was being challenged on the grounds that it breached five articles of the European Convention of Human Rights. The cases involve twelve people believed to have been killed by the British army across Belfast, Derry and Tyrone. The wounding of Belfast men, Brian Petticrew and Martin Dudley in Belfast’s Springhill in July 1972 and a case of alleged police and army torture, also in 1972.
Ms Coyle said: “We will continue to follow our clients’ instructions to fight for their fundamental right to public accountability in respect of the actions of the state and state agents in the killing, wounding and torture of their loved ones. Such actions should not be dealt with in the shadows where accountability does not exist and there is no correction of the public record.”
The twelve deaths included are: Annette McGavigan (14), Derry; Thomas Burns, Belfast; Jim McCann, Belfast; Joseph McCrystal, Newtownabbey; Patrick Crawford (15), Belfast; William Mailey, James Mulvenna and Denis Brown, all Belfast; William Norman Smyth, Belfast; Patrick Duffy, Derry; Dermott Hackett, Castlederg and Sean Hughes, Belfast.
