My Lords, we are now on one of the main debates in this Bill: the issue of amnesty and immunity. As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, this issue goes to the heart of the legislation, but it also drives a dagger through victims in Northern Ireland—people who have endured immeasurable suffering because of the loss of their loved ones in unexplained circumstances, because many of them have not been told how or why that loss happened, or the nature of the wounds inflicted on them. Those who are victims suffer many wounds in later life that can never be measured in terms of compensation or
monetarily but can be measured only in terms of loss of family lives and family time, because they have lost their loved ones. We all know many of those people, whose lives have been totally turned around by the actions of paramilitaries and—we cannot deny it—of state forces.
However, this issue of immunity strikes at the heart of everybody. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, there is universal opposition to this Bill and this particular part of it on immunity, and the clauses dealing with the withdrawal of access to inquiries and investigations. That is very much a denial of basic human rights in any normal democracy.
In the unavoidable absence of my noble friend Lord Hain, I will speak to Amendment 63, which is in his name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, and my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen. As the Bill stands with the Government’s amendments, there are only two circumstances in which immunity for some of the most heinous crimes imaginable can be revoked: if there is a conviction for misleading the ICRIR or for a subsequent terrorist offence. This is not good enough. Amendment 63 sets out other circumstances which would put in place at least some accountability measures as to the future conduct of perpetrators.
Are the Government seriously saying that, as far as they are concerned, someone who has confessed to a sectarian murder, for example, is perfectly free to harass that person’s family, laugh at their grief, celebrate their loss and still retain their immunity? Are they saying that they should still retain their immunity if they are a threat to the public? Where in this legislation is there any element of accountability for perpetrators? They do not even have to express remorse or regret for their actions. Presumably, they could appear before the ICRIR, describe what they have done to the best of their knowledge and belief, say, “By the way, I would do it all over again”, and still walk away with lifelong immunity in their pocket. As far as the world at large is concerned, they will not have a stain on their character, but we will never forget, nor will those who were the victims. They will carry the cross of the loss of their loved ones, in the most heinous circumstances, to their graves.
If we let this element of the legislation go through as the Government currently propose, we will be telling victims and survivors that we care more about the perpetrators than we do about them. I cannot believe that that is the message this House wants to send. The clauses regarding conditional immunity and those dealing with the eradication of inquests and investigations undoubtedly go to the very heart of this legacy debate. To impose conditional immunity and remove access to inquests and inquiries is a denial of basic civil liberties.
It is worth noting the following from the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, who spoke yesterday on immunity. She said:
“Despite this, the UK government has decided to go ahead with the Bill in a way that does not recognise Northern Ireland’s violent past or honours the suffering of victims. While the government has recently published amendments, these leave the fundamental problems with the Bill intact, such as the conditional immunity scheme that would result in impunity for serious human rights violations”.
She went on to talk about the cutting off of
“avenues to justice for victims”,
and questioned the ability of the ICRIR
“to deliver outcomes that would meet human rights standards”.
I would like the Minister to comment on the commissioner’s words and the actions the Government will take on foot of that.
It is noteworthy that victims organisations throughout Northern Ireland, such as Amnesty, the CAJ and the Human Rights Commission, have asserted in their submissions that the government amendments are not compliant with the provisions required by the ECHR—a point denied by the Secretary of State yesterday.
I am told that the Secretary of State relies on the amnesty provisions in the weapons Act as a basis for the amnesty in this Bill. When he was Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew, later Lord Mayhew—a former colleague of the Minister—said on the then Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Bill that that amnesty was “tightly defined”, and
“available only to those who adhere to the strict terms of a decommissioning scheme, and only for offences that they technically commit in respect of anything done in accordance with such a scheme”—
mainly offences of a possessory nature. He continued by saying that these provisions
“in no sense constitute some form of general amnesty covering other offences: the security forces will go on with undiminished resolution pursuing and bringing to justice those responsible for other crimes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/12/1996; col. 24.]
How does that square with this information and this clause on immunity? Maybe the Minister could comment on that in the light of the Government’s current Bill.
For all these reasons, I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Hain and Lord Murphy. If my noble friend Lord Murphy pushes Amendment 66 to a vote on Monday, I will support him in the Division.
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