Larkin Ripple Continues.

Posted By: December 06, 2013

The effects of the statement by NI Attorney General,  regarding past killings,  still has ripples on and on …
AMNESTY COULD LOCK US INTO OR FREE US FROM PAST

Denis Bradley. Irish News ( Belfast). Friday, December 6, 2013
JOHN Larkin was not right but neither was John Larkin wrong. Nor was John Larkin saying anything new or outrageous. If he was the wrong person to call for an amnesty and if it was done in a crude and insensitive way, those are matters for other forums. His call initially received only hostility from the good and great of political life and the vast bulk of victims. But a growing number of significant and influential voices are coming to the support of his central argument.

I would be in no position to be critical of some of what he said because some of it was almost a direct quote from a speech Robin Eames and I made nine months before we launched a report into the past some five years ago. We said that: “the reality is that as each day passes securing justice becomes less and less likely.

The public needs to understand the limitations in securing convictions. In many historic cases witnesses have died, exhibits are no longer credible or have disintegrated over time. The evidence collected in the 1970’s, and indeed in more recent times, is highly unlikely to meet modern forensic standards. This is the reality of the situation. If this is the reality then we believe we have a duty to begin to tell people that and not perpetuate false hopes”.

So John Larkin has done a service in underlining the reality that, in most cases, justice will be nigh impossible to achieve. The conviction, in recent days, of Seamus Kearney for the murder of reserve policeman John Proctor more than 30 years ago and the Smithwick Tribunal’s findings about the deaths of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan do not change the underlying reality but they do expose a weakness in any singular response to a multi-layered problem. The single impactful response, the single golden bullet, which apparently bursts through the barriers that have restrained our politics for too many years, is incredibly attractive. Whether it is as effective as it first appears is highly questionable.

Apart from the reality that an amnesty is probably illegal in international and european law, it certainly leaves too much soured and twisted debris in its wake. Instead of freeing us from the multitude of cases and issues that presently dominate our courts and politics, it will shift some of those battles to europe. Victims and survivors will appeal to european courts and unless europe is prepared to roll back decades of sensitively honed human rights law, it is more than likely to find on behalf of the applicants. Which would leave us back where we had started, except with attitudes that had become even more entrenched.

However, those possible scenarios do not remove an amnesty from being part of the solution. But instead of being ‘the solution’ it has to be part of the responses that make up the whole package. It has to be on the continuum that addresses the issues in as wholesome a manner as possible while moving all the time to a future that is not dominated by the past. It is on that continuum of measures, that are agreed between society and the victims, that the amnesty has to be placed. But it has to be placed at a point that is closer to the end than to the start. It should not be a ‘get out of jail’ for society that locks the victims and survivors into their pain.

Politicians have the responsibility to construct ways and means that deliver as much truth and as much justice as possible before the bluntness of amnesty is applied. If those efforts are thorough and honest and independent of vested interest, there is already evidence to show that Europe will find favour with such efforts and with the then introduction of amnesty so as to draw an acceptable line in the sand. Many countries have discovered the foolishness of ignoring or patronising the victims of conflict. But victims must also face the reality that society cannot allow itself to be continually impotent in moving beyond its past. Efforts to address the past have to be finite in effort and in time. Failure to achieve that balance here in the north is probably the most powerful ingredient that has led to the continuing tensions in our politics and ultimately to the invitation to Richard Haass to map a way out of the stagnation. Larkin Ripple Continues.
The effects of the statement by NI Attorney General,  regarding past killings,  still has ripples on and on …
AMNESTY COULD LOCK US INTO OR FREE US FROM PAST

Denis Bradley. Irish News ( Belfast). Friday, December 6, 2013
JOHN Larkin was not right but neither was John Larkin wrong. Nor was John Larkin saying anything new or outrageous. If he was the wrong person to call for an amnesty and if it was done in a crude and insensitive way, those are matters for other forums. His call initially received only hostility from the good and great of political life and the vast bulk of victims. But a growing number of significant and influential voices are coming to the support of his central argument.

I would be in no position to be critical of some of what he said because some of it was almost a direct quote from a speech Robin Eames and I made nine months before we launched a report into the past some five years ago. We said that: “the reality is that as each day passes securing justice becomes less and less likely.

The public needs to understand the limitations in securing convictions. In many historic cases witnesses have died, exhibits are no longer credible or have disintegrated over time. The evidence collected in the 1970’s, and indeed in more recent times, is highly unlikely to meet modern forensic standards. This is the reality of the situation. If this is the reality then we believe we have a duty to begin to tell people that and not perpetuate false hopes”.

So John Larkin has done a service in underlining the reality that, in most cases, justice will be nigh impossible to achieve. The conviction, in recent days, of Seamus Kearney for the murder of reserve policeman John Proctor more than 30 years ago and the Smithwick Tribunal’s findings about the deaths of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan do not change the underlying reality but they do expose a weakness in any singular response to a multi-layered problem. The single impactful response, the single golden bullet, which apparently bursts through the barriers that have restrained our politics for too many years, is incredibly attractive. Whether it is as effective as it first appears is highly questionable.

Apart from the reality that an amnesty is probably illegal in international and european law, it certainly leaves too much soured and twisted debris in its wake. Instead of freeing us from the multitude of cases and issues that presently dominate our courts and politics, it will shift some of those battles to europe. Victims and survivors will appeal to european courts and unless europe is prepared to roll back decades of sensitively honed human rights law, it is more than likely to find on behalf of the applicants. Which would leave us back where we had started, except with attitudes that had become even more entrenched.

However, those possible scenarios do not remove an amnesty from being part of the solution. But instead of being ‘the solution’ it has to be part of the responses that make up the whole package. It has to be on the continuum that addresses the issues in as wholesome a manner as possible while moving all the time to a future that is not dominated by the past. It is on that continuum of measures, that are agreed between society and the victims, that the amnesty has to be placed. But it has to be placed at a point that is closer to the end than to the start. It should not be a ‘get out of jail’ for society that locks the victims and survivors into their pain.

Politicians have the responsibility to construct ways and means that deliver as much truth and as much justice as possible before the bluntness of amnesty is applied. If those efforts are thorough and honest and independent of vested interest, there is already evidence to show that Europe will find favour with such efforts and with the then introduction of amnesty so as to draw an acceptable line in the sand. Many countries have discovered the foolishness of ignoring or patronising the victims of conflict. But victims must also face the reality that society cannot allow itself to be continually impotent in moving beyond its past. Efforts to address the past have to be finite in effort and in time. Failure to achieve that balance here in the north is probably the most powerful ingredient that has led to the continuing tensions in our politics and ultimately to the invitation to Richard Haass to map a way out of the stagnation.