UK security services helped devise act that gave amnesty over Troubles killings

A secret policymaking group helped develop Northern Ireland’s 2023 Legacy Act, which provided conditional immunity to soldiers and paramilitaries. The group included policing and state agency figures, and documents linked to the group were sought through freedom of information requests. The conditional immunity was later removed by the current government after a January vote. Victims’ groups criticized the legislation and expressed anger at the involvement of security and policing figures in its formulation. The Legacy Act was associated with the creation of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation, intended to investigate legacy cases. Earlier legacy efforts, including the Historical Enquiries Team, were ended after findings of failure to meet expectations for investigations.

"The British security services were involved in formulating the controversial Legacy Act, which offered an amnesty to soldiers and paramilitiaries despite MI5's role in many killings during the Northern Ireland Troubles, it can be revealed. The presence of policing and state agency figures among a secret policymaking group involved in devising the act a fact established through an investigation by Belfast-based newsletter the Detail and shared with the Guardian has angered victims' groups already critical of the legislation."

"The 2023 act's conditional immunity, which the current government removed after a vote in January, was opposed by all political parties in Northern Ireland, albeit sometimes for different reasons. Daniel Holder, from the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a Belfast-based NGO, fought an eight-month battle to have documents relating to the legacy senior working group released after his freedom of information requests were initially rebuffed."

"The legacy investigations senior working group was set up behind closed doors to assist the development of what became Boris Johnson's government's notorious Legacy Act. Despite the legal duties to ensure effective and independent investigations into legacy cases, which clearly include those involving the security forces, the group itself tasked with advising on how the policy should be developed heavily involves policing and security figures."

"The revelations that security services were involved in the act's formulation lend weight to long-held public concerns that the security and policing services were behind the Legacy Act and the Independent Commission for Reconciliation (ICRIR), the body it set up to investigate cases. The previous attempt to address legacy issues, the Historical Enquiries Team, was folded in 2014 after it was found that it had failed to"

Read at www.theguardian.com