The families of dozens of people killed during Northern Ireland’s Troubles have launched a legal attempt to force the state to hold inquests into the deaths of their loved ones.
Members of more than 30 families from both unionist and nationalist backgrounds delivered notice of the challenge by hand to the Stormont offices of the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire.
The victims include many who died in controversial circumstances at the hands of security forces. The families have given the Northern Ireland Office and the power-sharing executive at Stormont 14 days to release funds that would allow the inquests to begin.
Rita Bonner, whose brother John Laverty was shot dead by British soldiers in Ballymurphy, west Belfast in 1971, said the failure to hold an inquest into his and other deaths was a “total and utter disgrace”.
“In any other democratic society we wouldn’t be standing here. We shouldn’t have to be standing here pleading for our inquest to be opened,” she said.
Nichola Baxter, whose cousin Craig McCausland was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 2005, said the families were being denied closure.
“I come from a unionist background. We are waiting 11 years for an inquest and therefore a death certificate, simple things that the law says we are entitled to as families,” she said. “We are not getting answers and it’s the same for everybody here. A lot of people here are waiting longer than 11 years and it’s an absolute disgrace.”
Padraigh O Muirigh, a lawyer for the families, said the Westminster and Stormont administrations were in breach of their legal obligations to ensure inquests took place.
“I believe the British government are ignoring a warning from the Council of Europe and also from the lord chief justice,” he said. “Very clearly, they are in breach of their human rights application on this issue.”
The lord chief justice for Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, has demanded the creation of a special unit to deal with the backlog of inquests into some of the most controversial killings of the Troubles.
Morgan said the devolved government in Belfast should fund the new unit. A range of organisations representing victims of the Troubles say there are 57 legacy inquests that need to be held, relating to about 100 killings during 25 years of violence.
