Human rights groups criticise Troubles Bill ‘lawfare’ claims

Giving soldiers special impunity from human rights laws would destroy trust in the military and conceal wrongdoing, the Prime Minister has been told.

Human rights groups have urged Sir Keir Starmer to reject calls from retired senior military officers for a legal framework which would disapply the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act to troops’ actions while on active service.

Amnesty International UK and the Centre for Military Justice want the Prime Minister to publicly reject the proposals and ensure that investigations into Northern Ireland’s Troubles are independent and human-rights compliant.

The intervention comes as the Government’s new Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is due for its second reading in the UK Parliament on Tuesday.

Last week, nine former four-star generals warned that soldiers’ trust in the legal system is being eroded by “lawfare”, which they defined as “the use of legal processes to fight political or ideological battles”.

They claimed that “this lawfare is a direct threat to national security” and risks weakening the operational effectiveness of the forces.

In a joint open letter to coincide with Armistice Day which was published in The Times, the retired officials criticised broadening interpretations of human rights law as well as “legal activism” behind the Troubles Bill.

The legislation seeks to replace the last Conservative government’s contentious Legacy Act, which offered conditional immunity from prosecution to perpetrators in exchange for their co-operation with truth recovery mechanisms.

The new proposed legislation ditches that controversial immunity provision and allows for the resumption of criminal probes related to the Troubles.

It proposes a new-look Legacy Commission that will take on criminal investigations into Troubles deaths and a separate Independent Commission for Information Retrieval, which will seek to provide answers to victims’ families in cases where criminal prosecutions are not considered realistic.

Individuals passing information to the truth recovery body will be able to do so with an undertaking that the account they provide cannot be used in criminal proceedings against them.

The generals said giving equivalent protections to British soldiers as well as other actors in the conflict was “morally incoherent”.

Amnesty International UK and the Centre for Military Justice say the proposal to disapply the ECHR to troops’ actions is dangerous and would conceal wrongdoing.

In a letter to the Prime Minister seen by the PA news agency, they argue this would breach domestic and international law and leave families permanently without answers by placing perpetrators beyond legal scrutiny and preventing courts from examining serious crimes such as murder and torture.

They say hundreds of cases were shut down by the Legacy Act, including at least 225 serious criminal cases where the victim was a member of the armed forces.

Grainne Teggart, deputy director for Northern Ireland at Amnesty International UK, said: “Attempts to paint accountability as ‘lawfare’ are deeply harmful and deliberately misleading.

“Human rights protections uphold the very basic principle that no-one is above the law. Accountability strengthens trust. Impunity destroys it.”

Ms Teggart said the Belfast High Court has already ruled that attempts to grant a de facto amnesty for Troubles-related offences are unlawful.

She said: “We cannot ignore those most affected: victims and bereaved families have spent decades seeking truth and answers.

“Their trauma cannot be dismissed as an inconvenience to operational or political interests.

“Human rights protections are not a threat; they are the safeguard against abuse of power.”

Emma Norton, director at the Centre for Military Justice, said the ECHR protects UK forces fighting overseas and at home by ensuring they have reasonably safe equipment, and by having investigations into alleged abuse.

She said: “A system that would protect wrongdoing is a threat to the military, to public confidence and to the rule of law.

“The soldiers and military families we work with want wrongdoing addressed, so that the many who served honourably are not tarnished by the actions of a few.

“Service personnel understand that they are both bound by, and protected by, the rule of law.”

The Government says the proposed legislation puts in place six protections for veterans that were not provided for under the Legacy Act.

During the reading of the Bill, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is expected to tell Parliament that there is “no moral equivalence whatsoever” between armed forces members acting lawfully and paramilitaries responsible for terrorism.

Hilary Benn will say the new protections are designed specifically to protect any veteran asked to engage with a legacy process.

“We owe our Operation Banner veterans an enormous debt of gratitude. Their service and their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

The Northern Ireland Office highlights support for the Government’s approach by several victims and family groups.

In a letter to Mr Benn, the NI Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, Joe McVey, said: “The Framework has been received with cautious optimism by victims and survivors as a ‘work in progress’ with strong messages to both Governments to ‘get a move on’ rather than waste more precious time.

“We would encourage you and other parliamentarians to continue to show courage and determination to deliver for victims and survivors.”

A number of veterans have also criticised proposals to grant immunity from prosecution, which were central to the Legacy Act but were rejected by the courts and are now being repealed.

David Crabbe, a veteran who served for 30 years in the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Irish Regiment during the Troubles, said: “Op Banner veterans living in Northern Ireland feel that nobody should be shielded from the law. In serving they made a stand to uphold law and order and indeed paid a heavy price for that.”

There are more than 1,000 unsolved Troubles deaths across the UK, including more than 225 armed forces personnel.