Northern Ireland

Lord Chief Justice expresses frustration at the failure to resolve legacy issues

Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan. Picture by Hugh Russell. Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan. Picture by Hugh Russell.

NORTHERN Ireland's most senior judge has said he is leaving the role “disappointed” that the debate on legacy has not “been taken to the victims” or wider society.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan (69) is to retire today after more than a decade at the helm.

Later this week, his successor, Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan, will be sworn in, becoming the first woman to hold the position.

Tributes have been paid from legal colleagues to Sir Declan's “groundbreaking” work on legacy and, in particular, his determination to bring closure to victims of the Troubles through the Coroners Courts.

But almost seven years on from the Stormont House Agreement, which included plans to establish an Historical Investigations Unit to examine unsolved Troubles murders and an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, the failure of London and Stormont to implement the elements dealing with the past has frustrated Sir Declan.

Speaking to investigative website The Detail, the outgoing LCJ said that when he became President of the Coroners Court in 2015, London and Stormont had failed to implement the legacy sections of the Stormont House Agreement and even now, still, “largely none of them have been put in place."

At the time, Sir Declan appointed Lord Justice of Appeal Sir Reg Weir QC, to conduct an in-depth review of 55 pending legacy inquests and in an “unprecedented and much welcomed and appreciated move”, he met with victims to set out Lord Justice’s Weir’s findings and the plan to clear the inquest backlog.

The Department of Justice and the Executive delayed a decision on funding, then Stormont collapsed in Januar, 2017.

It was only in early 2020 that the funding was finally agreed, but progress was then delayed by Covid.

The inquest into the Ballymurphy massacre was completed and a schedule has been agreed for inquests and Sir Declan believes the backlog can be cleared within the agreed five-year timetable.

However, the recent British Government proposals on the past include an end to all Troubles-related inquests.

The LCJ said that he, “like many others in the community, remain deeply disappointed that we have not yet reached the stage where the community feels able to sit down and have a realistic and comprehensive look at what a reconciliation package in relation to legacy would consist of.”

He said that he thought the government’s proposals on the past will inevitably end up in the courts and that he pondered the possibility that the 2009 Eames-Bradley report will eventually be reconsidered as the way to deal with the legacy of the past.

"But it's very depressing to think that you've got families who are passing down, from generation to generation, obligations which are enormously demanding in the lives of those people and troubling.

"...like many others in the community, I remain deeply disappointed that we have not yet reached the stage where the community feels able to sit down and have a realistic and comprehensive look at what a reconciliation package in relation to legacy would consist of,” he added.

During the time Stormont was down, the issue of marriage equality came in front of the courts. Sir Declan says he may not have reached the ruling he made in 2020 that there had been discrimination if there had been an Executive in place.

With this in mind, the LCJ turned to the current structures of mandatory coalition at Stormont, saying that as a society, we he believes we need to consider whether “we necessarily want to continue to operate on the basis of a collective government as distinct from, you know, a government that's held to account by some politicians who take a different view."

“I think that's an open question. I wonder really whether, you know, there might come a time in the not too distant future where we start to think about whether we could afford to have another look at what Mark Durkan called the ugly architecture of the 1998 agreement.

"I mean, I think it served its purpose at the time, but it's not a legal matter, but the standing back, I'm thinking to myself, I just wonder whether there may be an opportunity to think a bit differently about it. And I do wonder whether it might produce better law.

:: See https://www.thedetail.tv/ for full interview.