The news that Irish and British government officials have been asked to explore potential changes to the controversial Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill which is due to come before the House of Lords in the coming weeks is a positive development.
The legislation, published without consultation by the British government and passed by the House of Commons, proposes an effective amnesty for crimes committed during the Troubles for people who cooperate with a new information retrieval body. The Bill also seeks to bring an end to inquests that have not reached an advanced stage and prevent future inquests into Troubles-related deaths.
Victims’ groups , all of the political parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish government have expressed opposition to the proposed legislation and anger at the way it was announced unilaterally. The latest prominent figure to criticise the plan is President Higgins who said this week that nobody who has suffered as a result of the conflict wanted to see immunity from prosecution for those responsible. His remarks, following an address to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, were an unprecedented criticism of the policy of a foreign government by an Irish President.
Only last month Dunja Mijatovic, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, suggested the bill ran “a very significant risk” of being ruled unlawful by the courts at national and international level and would fail in its declared objective of drawing line under the past.
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There have been signals in recent weeks that the British government is taking some account of the widespread opposition to its plan. Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney met Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris in London last week and they agreed to ask senior officials from Dublin and London to explore if the issue could be resolved by consensus.
Coveney emphasised that he wanted to find a way forward that reflected the concerns of the victims and their families. The Northern Secretary accepted that the Bill could be improved at committee stage in the House of Lords.
Hopefully recent signs of an easing in the strained relations between the two governments will encourage the British side to take account of the scale of the opposition to its proposals and result in meaningful change. The shock that greeted the decision to introduce the bill arose from the fact that it departed in significant ways from the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 between the Irish and British governments, and most of the parties in the North, about how to address these issues. The passage of time is an obstacle and full consensus will never be possible but there is room for greater agreement around dealing with the painful legacy of the Troubles.