The Northern Ireland amnesty will be no comfort to those who lost loved ones fighting during the Troubles

Editorial: This legislation is an attempt to appear even-handed in closing down prosecutions of British ex-service personnel, by making similar provision for terrorist murderers

Wednesday 14 July 2021 21:30 BST
Comments
<p>Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis outlined the plan in a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday</p>

Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis outlined the plan in a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday

It is a curious “offer” to make the bereaved of Northern Ireland. The government’s blanket amnesty for offences during the Troubles amounts to saying to each family, whether their misery was caused by crown forces or terrorists, that, no, they will now never get justice for their loved one – but, then again, neither will anyone else, whatever the circumstances. That is unlikely to provide much solace.

Grief is not a relative matter. While in most areas of human life people may well feel better or worse off through making comparisons with their workmates, counterparts, friends, family or even strangers who appear in the BBC star salary lists, there is no amount of suffering imposed on someone else that can act as recompense for one’s own sense of loss. It doesn’t really work like that, as anyone should know. The government’s new legislation, therefore, starts from a rather shaky premise.

Plainly it is an attempt to end the prosecution of a very few British soldiers for crimes committed around half a century ago. It is perhaps not fully realised that many of these cases of unlawful killings were not in the heat of battle or in immediate self-defence, and did not in fact, at least in some cases, involve terrorists at all. Some were of innocent civilians who had a right to life. The Conservatives and their unionist allies have since wished to stop these prosecutions, even where the courts decided there was a case to answer. These same people argued that the inquiries into Bloody Sunday and the Ballymurphy massacre were too expensive, or divisive or irrelevant.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in