Patrick Finucane: Supreme Court Judgment — House of Lords, 2020-12-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Angela Smith (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I first take a moment to pay tribute to Brian Kerr, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, whose death was announced by the Lord Speaker in your Lordships’ House earlier today. I am sure that the whole House will want to pay tribute to him and, on behalf of our Benches, I thank him for his service on the Supreme Court and as the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland. The whole House will offer its condolences but I also offer my personal condolences to his family and friends. His membership of the Supreme Court and judgments in the Finucane case are relevant today I appreciate that our way of working now means that Ministerial Statements are not repeated in your Lordships’ House. I understand why, but today in particular it would have been helpful for the House to have heard the words from the Secretary of State before we started on questions Few of us can even imagine the unspeakable horror of losing a loved one in a bloody and violent attack. During the euphemistically named Troubles, over 3,500 people lost their lives in Northern Ireland, many thousands more were injured and so many today continue to carry the physical and mental scars of that time. The 1989 murder of Pat Finucane is horrific. As he sat down at home for a meal with his family, he was shot 14 times by the Ulster Defence Association, the UDA. His wife Geraldine was also injured. Since then, the Finucane family have sought the full and complete truth about his murder and how it came about As a former Northern Ireland Victims Minister, I met many victims, cross-community, who had suffered and survived in different ways. Of all the ministerial posts and positions that I held, this was the one that had the greatest impact on me personally. I can still vividly recall the details of discussions and conversations —it is many years ago now—with individual victims and survivors. I had only to listen but they lived with the consequences each and every day. If there was one thread that ran through so many of those conversations, it was the search for the truth. Time and again, in different circumstances and from different sides of the community, I would hear that they wanted to know what had really happened. Why had their loved ones died in this way? Why had they been singled out? How could this have happened? As many in your Lordships’ House will know, the truth can be difficult and painful, but the dignity, sadness and perseverance of those families in that search for truth was humbling The truth can also be difficult for the Government. I welcome the repeat of David Cameron’s apology in the Minister’s Statement. It was genuinely made and it is right for it to be repeated. Mr Cameron was also correct when he said that it was not enough. For the Finucane family, the search for truth—the whole truth—continues. The Statement, however, is a bitter blow to them There have been several inquiries, including that by Sir Desmond de Silva, who found that there were "shocking levels" of state collusion. He concluded in his report that: "I am left in significant doubt as to whether Patrick Finucane would have been murdered by the UDA in February 1989 had it not been for the different strands of involvement by elements of the state" That report was, and still is, absolutely devastating In a further attempt for a full public inquiry, Geraldine Finucane took the case to the Supreme Court, and the Minister’s Statement recognises that the Supreme Court in its judgment held that "Mrs Finucane did have a legitimate expectation that there would be a public inquiry into Mr Finucane’s death", but Lord Kerr added that the Government had not taken decisions in bad faith or without genuine policy grounds but—and this is the part of the judgment that the Government have failed to adequately address in the Statement—the Supreme Court makes "a declaration that there has not been an article 2 compliant inquiry into the death of Patrick Finucane" Article 2 of our Human Rights Act is the right to life The Secretary of State outlined and clearly understands the reason why the Supreme Court came to that decision. But he appears to take the view that the three steps he outlined in the Statement could—and I repeat could—mean that the Government have fulfilled their obligations under Article 2 as outlined by the Supreme Court. Just to recap, the steps were, first, the information from the review announced by the Secretary of State in 2009, the current PSNI review and the review of the police ombudsman, which, if I have understood correctly, is dealing with issues referred to it in 2016. But then, if you read the rest of the Statement, you see that the Government are not convinced that is the case, because the Secretary of State says that he told the Finucane family that he would not establish a public inquiry "at this time" I know these things take time, and I know how difficult they are but, given that phrase the Secretary of State used in the House of Commons, about not having an inquiry "at this time", could the Minister say when he thinks the Government think it would be right to do so? What is preventing the Government seizing the opportunity now? I think the Minister has to understand that this issue will not go away until everyone is satisfied that the full story and the full truth has been told.