Ireland to sue UK over law blocking probes into Northern Irish violence

DUBLIN – Ireland will sue the United Kingdom over its Northern Ireland Legacy Act, which slams the door on legal actions linked to three decades of bloodshed in the U.K. region, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin announced Wednesday.

Martin said he regretted “that we find ourselves in a position where such a choice had to be made,” but accused the British government of reneging on previous bilateral agreements in favor of a unilateral approach that violates the European Convention on Human Rights.

This will be Ireland’s first complaint against the United Kingdom filed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg since 1971, when British soldiers and Northern Irish police were accused of torturing Irish Republican Army suspects. The court in that case ultimately ruled that the British security forces were guilty of “degrading and inhuman treatment,” not torture.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act – which was designed to shield former British soldiers from future charges or lawsuits but applies the same approach to all cases – became law in September. The law specifies that, as of May 2024, no new criminal investigations, inquests or civil lawsuits linked to conflict-era violence can begin. Instead, perpetrators will be invited to testify to a newly formed fact-finding commission in exchange for legal immunity, an approach rejected by every political party in Northern Ireland.

Martin said the Legacy Act breaks Britain’s previous 2014 commitment, contained in the Stormont House Agreement reached jointly with Ireland, to keep all avenues of justice open for victims of violence committed before the Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

“The decision by the British government not to proceed with the 2014 Stormont House Agreement and instead pursue legislation unilaterally, without effective engagement with the legitimate concerns that we, and many others, raised left us with few options. The British government removed the political option, and has left us only this legal avenue,” Martin said.

The U.K. government declined immediate comment.

The development – following years of Brexit friction between London and Dublin – was expected given overwhelming opposition to the Legacy Act among Northern Irish parties. Both of the Irish nationalist parties north of the border, Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, called on the Irish government to take Britain to court in Strasbourg in a bid to stop it.

Cases linked to some of the worst acts of violence from the conflict remain regular features of legal life in Northern Ireland today, even though the main paramilitary groups ceased fire in the mid-1990s, the IRA disarmed in 2005 and the British army withdrew from security duties in 2007.

Last week, Northern Ireland state prosecutors announced that a former paratrooper, identified only as Soldier F, will face trial for murder over his role in the British army’s Bloody Sunday killings of 13 unarmed Irish nationalist protesters in Londonderry on January 30, 1972.