Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of duration of non-jury trial provisions) Order 2017

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this extension order, and I fully but reluctantly support it. I am grateful to him for describing so fairly and accurately the security situation that exists in Northern Ireland now.

There is a problem in that the language that the Minister used, which was entirely justified, was actually sharper than we might have expected at this point in the proceedings; that is, 19 years since the Good Friday agreement. My hope is not so much that the Government are keeping this legislation under review and will be able to dispense with it in any reasonable short order, but that the next time the Minister comes to this House, he will at least be able to talk about the security situation in a more relaxed way than quite rightly he has done today.

I have one coda to add. I am probably slightly more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, about the return of devolution in the autumn. If it does return, the questions that he has raised in this debate are very important, and I can think of no reason why Her Majesty’s Government would not remind a new power-sharing Executive, when they are put into place this autumn, of the importance of these issues.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I, too, commend the Minister for his clarity on this issue. I would like to state clearly that, as far as my party, the DUP, is concerned, we have consistently argued that in any case where there is a significant risk of jury intimidation or a risk of perverse verdicts, it should be heard by a non-jury trial. Equally, offences motivated or aggravated by sectarianism, and crimes involving paramilitary and serious organised crime, including quasi-paramilitary organisations, should also be heard by a judge alone.

There is no doubt that, over the past 30 years and in extremely difficult circumstances, the Diplock court system served Northern Ireland quite well. It helped prevent jury intimidation and avoided perverse verdicts. I hasten to add that it may also have saved lives. Much of the credit must go to the judges who operated the system. They are to be commended and I do so wholeheartedly this evening.

This may be an imperfect way of administering justice, but it is the most satisfactory in the circumstances that prevail in Northern Ireland. My colleagues and I support the Government’s order. We also look forward to the hasty return of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I wish also to clarify to the House that my party, with the biggest mandate in Northern Ireland, is ready to return to the Assembly tomorrow—without any preconditions, without any ifs, ands or buts. We cannot see any reason why the Northern Ireland Assembly is not up and functioning and delivering for the people of Northern Ireland.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on this statutory instrument and thank them for their universal but reluctant support for it—I think that the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, summed it up both responsibly and correctly when he talked of the reluctance with which the decision was taken, but said that it was a very necessary decision. I also thank him for the bipartisan approach that has characterised the approach of government and opposition parties on the important issues that confront Northern Ireland. As I have indicated, it is a small number of cases that confront us where a non-jury trial is necessary—it is currently 0.5% of cases—but in my view it is nevertheless the correct approach.

I also thank other noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Alderdice, Lord Browne of Belmont, Lord Bew and Lord Morrow, and my noble friend Lord Bridgeman —for their support. Perhaps I may deal first with points that have been made across the piece on the return of the power-sharing Executive and then return to some specific issues quite correctly raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and echoed by others.

The return of the power-sharing Executive is absolutely necessary. I find that everybody seems to want it to happen, everyone is willing it to happen, but the two principal parties have not yet gone the final mile necessary. This may be due to a lack of personal chemistry among the leaders. We have seen in the past how the chemistry that has existed between the leaders of the two largest parties has helped them go that extra mile—we saw it with the “Chuckle Brothers” in the early days and then with Peter Robinson—but we have not yet seen it with the “Chuckle Sisters”. I hope that there will be some reflection over the summer and that we will be able to go that extra mile to get to where we need to be. I thank noble Lords for their support in that connection.

I also thank noble Lords for acknowledging that we are doing this reluctantly and keeping it under review. David Seymour, who is doing the independent review of the legislation, will incorporate this into the report so that we are able as soon as possible to end this practice, which I think we all accept is necessary but undesirable.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, once again for his support. He raised a couple of specific issues. The first was the deficiencies of the criminal justice system and the need to increase public confidence. We will respond to that report in due course, but I recognise the need that he reflected there. The second issue that the noble Lord raised, quite correctly, was the importance of confronting paramilitary activity. The noble Lord is aware more than most of the need to tackle that. I thank him for the role that he has played in producing the invaluable report on the way forward.

Noble Lords will be aware—as the noble Lord indicated—that the Executive agreed an action plan for tackling paramilitary activity, criminality and organised crime in July last year. Since the publication of the action plan, work has been progressing to implement those commitments. To date, £9.1 million has been allocated across more than 15 projects, including the establishment of a paramilitaries task force led by the PSNI, which will have support from the NCA and HMRC, to tackle the criminality linked to paramilitaries. I can assure the House that the current situation, with the absence of an Executive at Stormont, has therefore not completely halted this important work; progress continues to be made to push it forward. As the noble Lord will be aware, the fresh start agreement has led to the creation of the Independent Reporting Commission, which will report on progress towards ending paramilitary activity.

That said, there are of course limitations to what can be progressed in the absence of Ministers, in this area as in so many others, and certain issues, including any legislative changes, will not be able to be moved forward until Ministers are in place to take such decisions. That is one more important reason why we need that power-sharing Executive to move things forward in Northern Ireland.

Of course, we will keep matters under review—let us see how they progress over the summer—but it is clear that some important measures will need to be taken if we do not reach a situation where we have a return to a power-sharing Executive. This is just one more of those. So I undertake to keep the House informed as to how we are progressing things should we be in the unhappy position of not having a power-sharing Executive when we come back after the conference season. In the meantime, I again thank noble Lords for their support of this statutory instrument and commend it to the House.

Bloody Sunday Inquiry

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. Coming in at No. 20 behind a list of eminent speakers, I think that much that I would have referred to has perhaps been said, but noble Lords will forgive me if there is some repetition in my comments.

In a 30-year reflection on any event, there is sometimes a tendency to look at matters through rose-tinted glasses, although I suspect that, on close examination, we could all be guilty of that. Two hundred million pounds is a large sum of money by anyone’s standards. Were this House to have such a colossal sum at its disposal, what an appreciable difference we could make to the lives of all the people of Northern Ireland. Instead, in an economic climate such as this, this £200-million Saville inquiry—perhaps the most expensive foregone conclusion in history—borders on the obscene. It is a misappropriation of taxpayers’ money that, to be truthful, has changed very little in Northern Ireland’s society. It is the epitome of excess—the ultimate example of profligacy. And to what end? For this is the fundamental problem: a vast sum, a huge report and an astonishing 12 years later, nothing much—perhaps a few millionaire barristers aside—has changed. It is staggeringly ironic that, £200 million further on down the road, Martin McGuinness is on record as saying that an apology would have been sufficient.

The outcome was doomed from the start, as I shall explain. It was ever apparent that, no matter the result, at best one section of the community would be sceptical over the findings, feeling disfranchised and alienated and regarding it as a sop; at worst, some would have resorted to more violence on the streets, had they not got the result that they wanted.

The sad truth is that, yet again, the Protestant community was resigned from the start to the inevitability of the outcome going against its views of the events. Such resignation stems from past experience of government policy over at least two generations, which has been to appease those who shout the loudest and to acquiesce in the views of those who could prove the bigger threat. The harsh reality is that the predictability of the findings is further proof of the extent to which successive Governments and the establishment at every level have incessantly pandered to those who are contemptuous of the rule of law in the UK. They behave thus in a vain attempt to keep the seemingly acceptable face of republicanism on the supposed straight and narrow political path. However, your Lordships need no aide-memoire on the futility of feeding the proverbial crocodile. This inquiry was part of the deal, which has its roots in the Belfast agreement, to entice republicans away from terrorism and into the political process.

Evidence was heard from none other than Martin McGuinness, who admitted to being the IRA’s second in command in the area on the day in question. That is the same Martin McGuinness who now sits as Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister and who would probably be recognised as a statesman. In June, one national newspaper said of Saville that,

“nobody, but nobody, would order an inquiry into him”—

Martin McGuinness. It went on:

“This is one-directional justice. Each individual will have to work out for themselves whether this constitutes the mature behaviour of a democracy at its very best, or a wasteful exercise in appeasing a political sympathy that has been appeased for too many years”.

Mr McGuinness, as we are all aware, suffers from selective amnesia. Over the summer, we learnt that he forgot that he had spoken to a priest named Father Chesney, who was the prime suspect in the Claudy massacre. Claudy is not that far from Londonderry. Initially, Mr McGuinness vehemently denied even knowing this man; indeed, he could not remember talking to Father Chesney on his deathbed, which one would suspect would be an emotional, evocative and unforgettable experience. Paradoxically, he can clearly remember incidents from 30 years ago on Bloody Sunday, in which, he claims, he was not involved. However, as he cannot appropriately account for his whereabouts over some 25 minutes that day, it appears rather convenient that his memory of that in which he was involved, as events unfolded, is apparently not so sharp. We are told in the report:

“We consider it likely that Martin McGuinness was armed with a Thompson submachine-gun on Bloody Sunday and we cannot eliminate the possibility that he fired this weapon”.

There can be no doubt that the IRA was represented in the Bogside that fateful day and that Martin McGuinness was a member at that time.

To put the events in context, 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment was on site as tensions were running high following the slaughter of two RUC officers three days before. The civil rights march, as we have been reminded, was not a legal march. Gunfire broke out against the Army, which returned fire—Lord Widgery described it as being done “recklessly” and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville, describes the actions as “unjustified”. The outcome of both inquiries is fundamentally the same. Saville, of course, was much more expensive.

As I have previously told this House, we had no need for a £200-million inquiry to establish that there was no premeditated plan to shoot civilians on that day. We did not need an inquiry of this length to inform us that, as a consequence of IRA actions prior to that day, parts of Londonderry “lay in ruins”, to use the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville. Therein is an injustice itself.

Many murders, bombings, shootings and hijackings were perpetrated against innocent people in those 30 years of Northern Ireland’s tragic history—all without a public inquiry. It should be remembered that no one has ever been charged, let alone convicted, of the murders of the two RUC men that effectively sparked the events of Bloody Sunday. Moreover, the RUC lost more than 300 of its officers during the Troubles and, for more than 200 of those murders, no one has ever been tried, convicted or put before a court. Of course, for those officers of the law there will be no public inquiries. There will be no inquiry into the Remembrance Day massacre at Enniskillen; the massacre of the innocent at the La Mon House Hotel; Bloody Friday, when a series of bombs were planted strategically across Belfast leaving few routes of escape; Teebane, where workers were slaughtered in their van as they returned home; Kingsmill, when the IRA separated the Protestants from the Roman Catholics and gunned them down in cold blood; the Ballygawley Road/Omagh Road massacre of soldiers; Narrow Water, when 18 paras were massacred; and Darkley, when a small Pentecostal church was invaded by the IRA and people were murdered as they worshipped. There was the murder of Lord Mountbatten and the bombings at Hyde Park, Warrington, Brighton and Canary Wharf. I could go on. The list is seemingly endless.

It has been said in this House that there is but one inquiry that needs to be dealt with. I think that I have demonstrated quite clearly that there is more than one. It strikes me that there are 101. So why was there a Saville inquiry? The answer is abundantly clear. Political expediency was the order of the day, although that is no reflection on those who carried out the inquiry. This had absolutely nothing to do with truth and justice. Purely and simply, this was an attempt to appease the unappeasable—to soften the iron will of those who had terrorised Northern Ireland in a systematic campaign of annihilation and who were increasingly demonstrating their capacity for destruction and mayhem on the mainland.

The report has pilloried the Army for its actions on that day. The truth is that the soldiers had a job to do in exceptionally difficult circumstances. It should be remembered that, but for their presence in Northern Ireland, many more lives would have been lost. I want to get that on record. I want to pay tribute to every soldier who served in Northern Ireland during those dark 30 years of misery and for the sacrifices that many were called on to make, including the laying down of their lives.

When the Saville report is stripped of its glossy cover, millionaire lawyers and high-profile status, what remains? Certainly, in the wake of this 12-year inquiry, there are lessons to be learnt. So many ineffectual reports from numerous commissions have been produced; this has been the second run at a report covering the events that are now known in common parlance as Bloody Sunday. But for how much longer and how many more times will we be forced backwards to trawl through the ashes of the evil deeds that have gone 30 years before? I suspect that some would be content to carry on with such fruitless endeavours until the past is completely rewritten to suit them and their purposes.

The people of Northern Ireland want to move on. They have severe economic challenges to face and consider that money could be better spent on delivering services to enhance the standard of their lives. Let me be clear: the people of Northern Ireland are done with money pits that deliver very little. They have no appetite for further public inquiries or the nonsense of a proposed truth commission.

[Baroness O'Loan]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with some apparent authority about the views of the people of Northern Ireland. I do not know on what he rests his authority, but I am aware from my seven years working with the victims of the Troubles across the whole community that there are many such people. Is he not aware that there are many people who would like the answers to what happened to their loved ones?

[Lord Morrow]

I have heard what the noble Baroness has said. I have been an elected representative for some 35 years, during which time I have presented myself continually to the electorate and have been returned at every election, so that may be some authority. In relation to people wanting answers, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, is quite right. People want answers, but I am not sure that they want to be trawled through more endless inquiries. There has to be a better way. Quite frankly, we have made a new start in Northern Ireland. Let us give it a chance and try to move forward. Are we are going to continually go down the road of selective inquiries? Bloody Sunday was a real tragedy and people lost their lives, and I do not minimise it in any way, but are we going to go down the road of setting a hierarchy of victims? Is that what we want to achieve? I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, takes that point.