A “truth recovery commission” must be incorporated in any new legislation to deal with the thousands of deaths and injures of the Northern Ireland Troubles, victims and human rights organisations have demanded.
Amnesty International and the Belfast-based Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) are working with the families of those killed and wounded in the conflict to push for transparency as well as justice.
The government is expected to unveil proposals on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles in October. The legislation is tied to an all-party agreement hammered out during Stormont House talks at the end of last year.
Alan Brecknell, whose father was killed in an Ulster Volunteer Force gun and bomb attack in 1975, said relatives needed to know exactly what had happened to victims.
“My family and thousands like us have waited too long to see truth and justice for what happened to our loved ones. The UK government must now act in good faith to legislate for all the mechanisms agreed at Stormont House – including the Historic Investigations Unit to investigate past atrocities, and an information recovery commission to let victims know what happened to their family members,” Brecknell said.
“Different victims want different things from new mechanisms to deal with the past. Indeed, my own family has different views on issues such as the need for prosecutions. But every victim has the right to justice and the right to truth and, after so many false dawns in the past, the government at Westminster must now deliver, in full, new effective mechanisms to finally deal with our terrible recent history.”
Brecknell was seven years old when his father, Trevor, was killed in an attack at Donnelly’s bar in south Armagh just before Christmas 1975. Trevor, 32, had returned from visiting his wife and newborn daughter in hospital when the attack took place.
On Wednesday Amnesty International and the CAJ will publish “model legislation”, in an attempt to “ensure that the legislation will guarantee victims’ rights to truth and justice”.
