Sir Declan Morgan says Legacy Act row ended up retraumatising troubles victims

Controversy over new laws to deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland's Troubles ended up retraumatising some victims, Sir Declan Morgan has said.

Sir Declan, chief commissioner at the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), also stated that it was clear from the beginning that the most contentious element of the Legacy Act, conditional immunity from prosecution, "was dead in the water".

The ICRIR was created by the Conservative government's Legacy Act which halted scores of civil cases and inquests into Troubles deaths.

It has powers to look into more than 3,500 killings and can accept requests for the next five years.

Labour has said that it will repeal the Legacy Act but has pledged to retain the ICRIR.

However, the commission has faced opposition from political parties in Northern Ireland and some victims' organisations.

The commission has registered 85 inquiries since becoming operational earlier this year. Eight of those have now moved into the information recovery stage.

One of the first investigations will be into the 1974 Guildford pub bombings on October 5 1974 in which four soldiers and a civilian were killed.

An IRA terror cell later claimed responsibility.

Sir Declan, a former Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland, said all of the 85 requests would be or are being dealt with by case recovery teams using a trauma and resiliency informed methodology.

He said: "We have been quite conscious of the fact that the people we are talking about are all the people who have endured really pretty horrific trauma one way or another.

"The commission and everything around it, the dispute over the Act, has actually led to retraumatisation in some instances and I am aware of that from the contact I have had with some of the (victims') support groups."

Sir Declan said the Legacy Act introduced by the Tories had "obvious problems".

He said the main one had been a form of conditional immunity offered to perpetrators of crimes during the conflict.

This provision was struck out at Belfast High Court in a legal challenge brought by the families of Troubles victims. The Labour Government has abandoned an appeal against this judgment.

Sir Declan said: "The conditional immunity provision was framed as being entirely in the hands of the perpetrator and the victim had no say whatsoever in it.

"The courts dealt with that and I couldn't express a view about that while the courts were dealing with it.

"It was clear to me that that was the way that the courts were going to deal with it because it was so plainly not consistent with a victim-led approach and the principles under Article 2 of the Convention (on Human Rights).

"From the start when I saw the provision, I couldn't as a retired chief justice come out and say this is unlawful because I would have been accused rightly of interfering with the court's process.

"But now that the court has made the finding, but more importantly the appeal has been abandoned and there is no further court proceeding in relation to it, I am now free to indicate that part of my thinking about doing this was that this provision always seemed to me to be dead in the water and we would never have to deal with it.

"But I understand that the very fact that that provision was there upset a lot of people."

He added: "The rhetoric in a way was almost worse than the Act because the rhetoric was telling people you are not going to get any answers to any of the questions you have and that undoubtedly has had an effect upon people.

"I know from talking to some of the support groups that they noticed an increase in the number of people who were coming through to them, who were finding themselves retraumatised as a result of that."

Sir Declan said that he understood that some people still had concerns about the work of the ICRIR, but pointed out no other route currently exists for the families of Troubles victims to receive answers.

He said: "Despite the rhetoric we have actually put together something which is different.

"The problem is, for understandable reasons, people either don't believe that we really have achieved it or some people don't want to listen because they feel what happened with this Act was so bad it is almost like a process of exorcism, that the magic wand has to make it disappear.

"That could be a problem for some people who are maybe in end of life situations and who want to get answers to things that have happened.

"There is no legislative programme in place to do anything about legacy at the moment, we simply don't know how long it would take if legislation were required to make changes.

"At least we are there for people who do want these answers delivered by people who are independent and going to respect their trauma. At least there is somebody there to do that, and that is us."