The Court of Appeal in Belfast has ruled that the British army was wrong to keep two convicted murderers in its ranks after they were released from prison.
Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher were convicted of the murder of a Belfast teenager in 1995 and controversially served only six years of a life sentence.
The Appeal Court, however, stopped short in its majority verdict of orderingthe British army to dismiss the soldiers.
Ms Jean McBride, whose unarmed son Peter was shot twice in the back near his home in thenationalist New Lodge area of north Belfast in 1992, challenged the ruling by a British army Board to allow the two remain serving soldiers despite their murder convictions.
The 2-1 majority ruling was given this morning on the appeal, heard by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Carswell, Lord Justice Nicholson and Lord Justice McCollum.
Speaking to journalists outside the court, Ms McBride said she was "delighted" and called for the men to be removed from the British army.
The Army Board that allowed the two to remain in the army's ranks included a senior British government Minister, Mr John Spellar MP, and General Mike Jackson, a member of the Parachute Regiment on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday and current commander of British Land Forces.
Human rights organisations Amnesty International, British Irish Rights Watch,Liberty, the Committee on the Administration of Justice and the Pat FinucaneCentre said the Army Board would have to reconsider the case.