Paris, Jan 19 (EFE).- The Republic of Ireland has formalized before the Strasbourg Court its promised lawsuit against the British law for reconciliation in Northern Ireland, especially because it questions the immunity for crimes committed during the conflict, between 1960 and the 1998 peace agreement.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) indicated today in a statement that the Irish Government filed this interstate lawsuit on November 17 because it considers that some provisions of the law are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Above all, those that guarantee immunity for the perpetrators of acts of violence, be they Irish nationalists, unionists or even British law enforcement, and which caused the death of some 3,500 people in nearly four decades.
For Dublin, this violates the articles of the European convention that protect the right to life and prohibit torture and ill-treatment.
In addition, it also criticizes as incompatible with European rules the part of the British law enacted on September 18, 2023 that creates an independent commission to filter and prohibit, in the name of reconciliation, police and judicial investigations that can be carried out. .
The law was an initiative in 2021 by the then British Prime Minister, the conservative Boris Johnson, to wipe the slate clean on the Northern Irish conflict after the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. His two successors, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, also approved it. have defended
When the Irish Government announced its intention to appeal to the Strasbourg Court last December, one of its main arguments was that victims could not be marginalized and deprived of access to the truth with this legislation, which they have also opposed. Northern Irish parties and human rights organisations.
This is Ireland’s second interstate claim against the United Kingdom before the ECtHR over the Northern Irish conflict.
The first, presented in 1971, referred to some interrogation techniques used in that territory by British forces by virtue of the special powers attributed to them by London, which European judges described as inhuman and degrading treatment, but not torture as Dublin claimed. . EFE
ac/atc/ig
2024-01-19 16:26:12
#Irish #claim #ECtHR #United #Kingdom #immunity #Northern #Ireland
