Source: http://www.ipsofactoj.com/DecidedCases/international/2005/part01/int2005(01)-002.htm
Timestamp: 2017-09-21 14:12:47
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Matched Legal Cases: ['art 1', 'UKHL ', 'UKHL ', 'UKHL ', 'UKHL ', 'Art.2', 'Art.46']

Secretary of State, Northern Ireland v McKerr [HL]
Ipsofactoj.com: International Cases [2005] Part 1 Case 2 [HL]
The Secretary of State, Northern Ireland
This is a test case. It arises out of the absence of adequate public investigations into some fatal shootings in Northern Ireland over 20 years ago. This particular case relates to the death of Mr. Gervaise McKerr. His son Jonathan seeks an order compelling the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to hold an effective investigation into the circumstances of his father's death. He bases his claim primarily on the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 even though his father died many years before the Act came into force. He also advances a claim based on the common law.
The issues arising on this appeal before your Lordships are points of law. But I must first summarise briefly the protracted history of the steps taken by the United Kingdom authorities to investigate the circumstances of the death of Gervaise McKerr. A fuller record can be found in the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in McKerr v United Kingdom (2002) 34 EHRR 20, paras 11-61. The history extends over twelve years, from November 1982 to September 1994, and falls essentially into three parts.
First, criminal proceedings: one police officer was charged with the murder of Eugene Toman, a passenger in the car when the shooting occurred, and two other police officers were charged with aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring the officer to commit that offence. The trial took place between 29 May 1984 and 5 June 1984. At the end of the trial all three officers were acquitted on the direction of the judge.
Meanwhile on 7 March 1993 Gervaise McKerr's widow lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights. After her death the application was continued by Mr. Jonathan McKerr.
The applicant invoked article 2 of the Convention. He alleged that his father had been unjustifiably killed and that there had been no effective investigation into the circumstances of his death. This application proceeded simultaneously with three others, two of which concerned deaths at the hands of the security forces and the third an allegation of police complicity in a murder by paramilitaries.
The court gave its judgment in all four cases on 4 May 2001. In the McKerr case the court made no finding on the lawfulness or proportionality of the use of lethal force which killed Gervaise McKerr. Nor did the court reach any conclusions on the circumstances, including Gervaise McKerr's own activities, which led up to the killing. But the court found that the various investigatory proceedings disclosed a number of shortcomings. These included:
lack of independence of the investigation carried out by the RUC;
lack of public scrutiny and information to the victim's family concerning the independent (Stalker/Sampson) investigation, including lack of reasons for the failure to prosecute any police officer for perverting or attempting to pervert the course of justice;
the inquest procedure did not allow verdicts or findings which might play an effective role in securing prosecutions in respect of any criminal which might be disclosed;
no advance disclosure of witness statements at the inquest;
the PII certificate had the effect of preventing the inquest examining matters relevant to outstanding issues;
the police officers who shot Gervaise McKerr could not be compelled to attend the inquest as witnesses;
the inquest proceedings did not start promptly, and neither they nor the Stalker/Sampson investigation proceeded with reasonable expedition.
The court held unanimously that article 2 of the Convention had been violated by failure to comply with the obligation, implicit in article 2, to hold an effective official investigation when an individual has been killed by the use of force: see (2002) 34 EHRR 20, paras 157-161. The court awarded Mr. Jonathan McKerr £10,000 as just satisfaction in respect of the frustration, distress and anxiety he must have suffered. A finding of violation was not sufficient compensation.
Mr Jonathan McKerr was not disposed to accept this as an adequate governmental response to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. The government ought to fulfil its obligation under article 2 of the Convention and remedy the deficiencies in the investigations so far undertaken into his father's death. Armed with the rights newly afforded him by the Human Rights Act, Mr. McKerr sought the assistance of the court in compelling the government to conduct an effective investigation, in the form of a further coroner's inquest. On 30 January 2002 he commenced these judicial review proceedings. The relief claimed comprises
declarations that the Secretary of State's continuing failure to provide an article 2 compliant investigation is unlawful and in breach of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and article 2 of the Convention,
a mandatory order compelling the Secretary of State to conduct an article 2 compliant investigation and
On 26 July 2002 Campbell LJ dismissed the application. The Human Rights Act 1998 did not have retrospective effect. But the obligation to hold a proper investigation into a pre-Act death continued until either the obligation was fulfilled or a competent court vindicated the right in some other way. In the present case the continuing obligation to hold an investigation compliant with article 2 came to an end when the European Court of Human Rights made a finding of violation of article 2 and ordered payment of just satisfaction to Mr. Jonathan McKerr.
Mr Jonathan McKerr appealed, and on 10 January 2003 the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. Carswell LCJ delivered the judgment of himself and McCollum LJ and Coghlin J. The court agreed with Campbell LJ that the obligation to hold an investigation which complied with the requirements of article 2 was a continuing one. Counsel for the Secretary of State did not seek to uphold the judge's view that payment of compensation automatically brought the article 2 obligation to an end. Counsel contended that once just satisfaction had been awarded and paid, Mr. Jonathan McKerr was no longer a 'victim' within section 7 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and accordingly he could not complain of any breach of the continuing obligation. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument. The court made a declaration that the government has failed to carry out an investigation complying with article 2. The court considered it inappropriate to grant any other relief because the committee of ministers had not yet ruled on the proposals made to them by the United Kingdom government. From that decision the Secretary of State appealed to your Lordships' House.
in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling riot or insurrection.
Having had the advantage of much fuller arguments I respectfully consider that some of these courts, including the Divisional Court in the Hurst case and the Court of Appeal in the Khan case, fell into error by failing to keep clearly in mind the distinction between
rights arising under the Convention and
rights created by the Human Rights Act by reference to the Convention.
These two sets of rights now exist side by side. But there are significant differences between them. The former existed before the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998 and they continue to exist. They are not as such part of this country's law because the Convention does not form part of this country's law. That is still the position. These rights, arising under the Convention, are to be contrasted with rights created by the Human Rights Act. The latter came into existence for the first time on 2 October 2000. They are part of this country's law. The extent of these rights, created as they were by the Human Rights Act, depends upon the proper interpretation of that Act. It by no means follows that the continuing existence of a right arising under the Convention in respect of an act occurring before the Human Rights Act came into force will be mirrored by a corresponding right created by the Human Rights Act. Whether it finds reflection in this way in the Human Rights Act depends upon the proper interpretation of the Human Rights Act.
Had I reached the contrary conclusion I would not have accepted the Secretary of State's argument that Mr. Jonathan McKerr had no standing to bring these proceedings because he ceased to be a 'victim' within the meaning of section 7 of the Human Rights Act once he had been paid the amount of money awarded by the European Court of Human Rights as just satisfaction. Mr. McKerr was awarded this amount for his frustration, distress and anxiety over the years. All too obviously he is still not in the position intended to be achieved by fulfilment of the obligation to hold an effective investigation into his father's death. Crucial questions remain unanswered. As already noted, the European Court of Human Rights did not itself decide whether Gervaise McKerr had been killed by the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force. Nor did the court decide whether Gervaise McKerr had been the victim of a shoot-to-kill policy operated by some members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Before your Lordships' House Mr. Treacy advanced a further basis for Mr. McKerr's judicial review proceedings. He submitted that the right to an effective official investigation is as much a feature of the common law as it is of the European Convention. The rationale which underlies the procedural obligation under article 2 must also underpin the common law. He relied heavily upon an observation made by Lord Bingham of Cornhill in R (Amin) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] 3 WLR 1169, 1185, para 30:
A profound respect for the sanctity of human life underpins the common law as it underpins the jurisprudence under articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. This means that a state must not unlawfully take life and must take appropriate legislative and administrative steps to protect it.
That is not the route being followed in this case. In these proceedings Mr. McKerr is not challenging any decision of the Armagh coroner. This is perhaps hardly surprising, given the years which have elapsed since the coroner closed his inquest into Gervaise McKerr's death. Nor is Mr. McKerr asking the House to interpret the statutory provisions relating to coroners in a way which would make them compliant with the investigative requirements of article 2.
This view is confirmed by another feature of the case. As already emphasised, by enacting the Human Rights Act 1998 Parliament created domestic law rights corresponding to rights arising under the Convention. When doing so Parliament chose not to give the legislation retroactive effect. In relation to article 2 the intention of Parliament, as interpreted above, was not to create an investigative right in respect of deaths occurring before the Act came into force. The common law right urged on behalf of Mr. McKerr would accord ill with this legislative intention. The effect of the propounded right would be to impose positive human rights obligations on the state as a matter of domestic law in advance of the date on which a corresponding positive obligation arose under the Human Rights Act.
.... the scope of the criminal trial was restricted to the criminal responsibility of the three officers. The applicant, relying inter alia on the Minnesota Protocol, argued that the trial was not capable of addressing wider concerns about other aspects of official involvement in the killings. One of these aspects was the deliberate instructions of a senior officer to the suspects to conceal information from the investigating officers, which raised doubts as to what other information or obstruction might have occurred. Another was the fact that there had been two other incidents in Armagh within a month in which police officers from the special mobile support units had used lethal force, killing Michael Tighe on 24 November 1992 and Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll on 12 December 1992, all of whom had been unarmed. A prosecution had occurred concerning the latter incident and had also resulted in an acquittal. It was alleged that police officers involved in these incidents had similarly been instructed to conceal evidence.
The Court considers that there may be circumstances where issues arise that have not, or cannot, be addressed in a criminal trial and that Article 2 may require a wider examination. Serious concerns arose from these three incidents as to whether police counter-terrorism procedures involved an excessive use of force, whether deliberately or as an inevitable by-product of the tactics that were used. The deliberate concealment of evidence also cast doubts on the effectiveness of investigations in uncovering what had occurred. In other words, the aims of reassuring the public and the members of the family as to the lawfulness of the killings had not been met adequately by the criminal trial. In this case therefore, the Court finds that Article 2 required a procedure whereby these elements could be examined and doubts confirmed, or laid to rest. It considers below whether the authorities adequately addressed these concerns.
Reinforced by the judgment in Strasbourg, and twenty-one years after the death of his father, Mr. Jonathan McKerr wants an effective investigation of the circumstances in which his father died. Despite the judgment of the E.Ct.H.R., the Secretary of State refuses to permit such an investigation. The Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland found in favour of the son. The court concluded (para 13):
We accordingly consider that the appellant's claim is well founded, that there is continuing breach of Article 2(1) which requires to be addressed by the respondent Government. Since, however, the Committee of Ministers has not yet ruled on the proposals made to them by the Government in respect of the four cases heard by the E.Ct.H.R., we would not regard it as appropriate to do more than make a declaration. In these circumstances we propose to allow the appeal and make a declaration that the respondent Government has failed to carry out an investigation which complies with the requirements of Article 2 of the Convention, but not to grant any other relief.
The relevant Convention right is Article 2. It provides expressly that everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. By necessary implication it places an independent procedural obligation on the state to investigate promptly and effectively cases where agents of the state cause death by the use of force. The existence of this implied obligation under Article 2 was first spelt out by the E.Ct.H.R. in McCann v The United Kingdom (1995) 21 EHRR 97: for a review of the subsequent European jurisprudence see Lester & Pannick, Human Rights Law and Practice, 2nd ed, 2004, 4.2.31-4.2.39 and Mowbray, The Development of Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights, 2004, 27-40. In order to have a cause of action under the 1998 Act, Mr. McKerr must however have the status of being a "victim" within the meaning of section 7(1).
On the facts of the present case, and because Mr. McKerr has received compensation, the Government argues that he lacks the standing of being a victim. On this simple ground it is said that the door of the court is closed to him. In my view this argument is wrong. But for the receipt of compensation Mr. McKerr was unquestionably a victim. After all, he is a son questioning why his father was killed by agents of the state. The E.Ct.H.R. made the award of compensation on the basis that, due to the violation of the procedural obligation, the son "suffered feelings of frustration, distress and anxiety": para 181. In other words, the failure to carry out an investigation promptly and effectively caused the son mental suffering and for that an award of compensation was made. The procedural obligation remains unfulfilled. The state has never conducted a proper investigation into the death of Mr. McKerr's father. The compensation was plainly not intended by the E.Ct.H.R. to be the price which, if paid, relieved the Government of its unfulfilled procedural obligation even in circumstances where such an obligation was still capable of being fulfilled. Nothing in the judgment of the E.Ct.H.R. supports such an implausible idea. I would reject this argument.
.... has the Secretary of State acted or failed to act on or after 2 October 2000 in a way which is incompatible with the Respondent's Article 2 Convention rights contrary to Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (the retrospectivity issue)?
Does the common law now impose an obligation upon the United Kingdom Government to hold an effective official investigation into the circumstances of the Respondent's father's death irrespective of the Human Rights Act 1998 (the common law issue)?
As regards the applicant's views concerning provision of an effective investigation, the Court has not previously given any indication that a Government should, as a response to such a finding of a breach of Article 2, hold a fresh investigation into the death concerned and has on occasion expressly declined to do so. Nor does it consider it appropriate to do so in the present case. It cannot be assumed in such cases that a future investigation can usefully be carried out or provide any redress, either to the victim's family or by way of providing transparency and accountability to the wider public. The lapse of time, the effect on evidence and the availability of witnesses, may inevitably render such an investigation an unsatisfactory or inconclusive exercise, which fails to establish important facts or put to rest doubts and suspicions. Even in disappearance cases, where it might be argued that more is at stake since the relatives suffer from the ongoing uncertainty about the exact fate of the victim or the location of the body, the Court has refused to issue any declaration that a new investigation should be launched. It rather falls to the Committee of Ministers acting under Article 46 of the Convention to address the issues as to what may practicably be required by way of compliance in each case.
One would have expected an affidavit from the state explaining why an investigation is impossible. To such an affidavit I would have paid the closest attention. There is no affidavit. The strategy has been to steer clear of the facts. The observations of the Attorney-General that an enquiry is no longer possible, unsupported by evidence, have no more weight before the House than that of any other advocate or litigant in this case who is parti pris. In any event, counsel for Mr. McKerr pointed out that the fruits of police investigations are still in existence; the transcripts of the criminal trials are available; and there is available the Stalker/Sampson report consisting of 3609 pages in twenty separate volumes including one album of maps and photographs. If an inquest were to be held, it would be up to the coroner to read the latter report and consider whether it should be put in evidence. So far neither the coroner in Northern Ireland nor any judge considering the matter has read the report. In Northern Ireland judicial review proceedings it was held that the report is irrelevant. How one can say, in advance of studying it, that it is not relevant I do not understand. The E.Ct.H.R. was clearly sceptical. So am I.
A subtext of the Attorney General's submission was the suggestion that there are legal impediments to holding an enquiry. So far as the Attorney-General said that witnesses would not be compellable, this problem has been removed by legislation: Coroners (Practice and Procedure) (Amendment Rules (Northern Ireland) 2002. In the domestic legal system there is also no impediment to making an order that the inquest should be re-opened: Leckey & Greer, Coroners' Law and Practice in Northern Ireland, 1998, 15-02; In re McCaughey (Unreported) 20 January 2004, per Weatherup J., N.I.
The retrospectivity issue now arises. Mr. McKerr's case is founded on section 6 of the 1998 Act. Leaving aside proceedings taken at the instigation of a public authority, which are not under consideration, it is now settled law that section 6 is not retrospective: section 22(4) of the 1998 Act; R v Lambert [2002] 2 AC 545; R v Kansal (No. 2) [2002] 2 AC 69; Wilson v First County Trust Ltd (No. 2) [2003] 3 WLR 568 (HL). Mr. McKerr's father was killed in 1982. The 1998 Act came into force on 2 October 2000. The Court of Appeal held that there is a continuing breach of Article 2 which requires to be addressed by the Government: para 13. In my view the Attorney-General has demonstrated that this reasoning cannot be sustained. The Government may have been in breach of its obligations under international law before 2 October 2000 to set up a prompt and effective investigation. But those treaty obligations created no rights under domestic law, not even after the right to petition to Strasbourg was created by the United Kingdom Government in 1966. The very purpose of the 1998 Act was "to bring home rights" which were previously justiciable only in Strasbourg: The Government White Paper, October 1997 (Cm 3782). That appears, in any event, to be the consequence of the rule enunciated by the House of Lords in the International Tin Council case that an unincorporated treaty can create no rights or obligations in domestic law: J. H. Rayner (Mincing Lane) Ltd v Department of Trade and Industry [1990] 2 AC 418. As Lord Hoffmann has pointed out this rule has been affirmed by the House in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Brind [1991] 1 AC 696 and in R v Lyons [2003] 1 AC 976, and in particular in the leading judgment of Lord Hoffmann in the latter case: para 27. The later decisions rest, however, on the pivot of the International Tin Council decision.
.... international law is part of the law of the land. Some rights contained in international human rights treaties are not the produce of inter-State contract, but antedate any such multilateral agreement. The treaty is merely the instrument in which a rule of general international law is repeated. It bears repetition in an international instrument, partly because relatively 'new' rights may also be included, and partly because the treaty may involve procedural undertaking for the States Parties. But none of that changes the character of a given right as an obligation of general international law. Freedom from torture, freedom of religion, free speech, the prohibition of arbitrary detention, should all fall in that category. As such - and even were these rights not already secure through a separate domestic historic provenance - they would be part of the common law by virtue of being rules of general international law.
There is also growing support for the view that human rights treaties enjoy a special status: Murray Hunt, Using Human Rights Law in English Courts, 1998, pp 26-28. Commenting on Lewis v Attorney General of Jamaica [2001] 2 AC 50 Mr. Justice Collins commented that "it may be a sign that one day the courts will come to the view that it will not infringe the constitutional principle to create an estoppel against the Crown in favour of individuals in human rights cases": Foreign Relations and the Judiciary 2002, 51 ICLQ 485, at 497. That is not to say that the actual decision in the International Tin Council case was wrong. On the contrary, the critics would accept the principled analysis of Kerr LJ in the Court of Appeal that the issue of the liability of member states under international law is justiciable in the national court, and that under international law the member states were not liable for the debts of the international organisation: see Mr. Justice Lawrence Collins, op cit, at 497.
That brings me to the common law issue. In a careful and helpful argument Mr. Treacy Q.C. invited the House to hold that the common law should be developed to recognise a substantive right to life, coupled with a procedural right co-extensive with that enunciated in 1995 in McCann. He pointed out that, unlike cases such as Lyons where there was what he called a legislative "block" in play, there is none in the present case. This argument has considerable force. The fact that there is no authority for such a development is not in itself fatal. In R v Chief Constable R.U.C. ex parte Begley [1997] 1 WLR 1475, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, in giving the unanimous opinion of the House, observed (at 1480):
It is true that the House has a power to develop the law. But it is a limited power. And it can be exercised only in the gaps left by Parliament. It is impermissible for the House to develop the law in a direction which is contrary to the expressed will of Parliament.
Before embarking on such a course the House would have to take into account that, by and large, the law regarding inquests has been developed in Northern Ireland by statute: see Leckey & Greer, Coroner's Law and Practice in Northern Ireland, 1998, passim. Moreover, the House would have to confront another difficulty. It must be sound principle for a supreme court to develop the law only when it has been demonstrated that the just disposal of cases compellingly requires it. Given that the right to life is comprehensively protected under Article 2 of the Convention as incorporated in our law by the 1998 Act, why is there now a need to create a parallel right to life under the common law? Given that the procedural obligation under Article 2 is comprehensively protected under our law, as held by the House of Lords in R (Amin) v Secretary of State of the Home Department [2003] 3 WLR 1169, why is there now a need to create a parallel right under the common law?
First, that treaties may generate rules of customary international law: the accepted view that unenacted treaties 'cannot be a source of rights and obligations' in England is thus effectively sidestepped, since it is not the treaty itself which is the source of rights. Second, that the numerous human rights treaties and other instruments, of which the European Convention is but one, have given or, at least, may give rise to rules of customary international human rights law. Third, that customary international law forms part of the common law of England. If these three be accepted, it follows that, to the extent that the content of any right encompassed in the European Convention is the same as its content in customary international law, the right in question will be recognised in English law as a part thereof.
Mr McKerr's mother (and after her death, his son) petitioned the European Commission of Human Rights in 1993, alleging that the United Kingdom was in breach of Article 2 of the Convention: "Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law". In McCann v United Kingdom (1996) 21 EHRR 97 the Strasbourg court held (at paragraph 161) that this requires the State to provide
some form of effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force by, inter alios, agents of the State.
In Mr. McKerr's case, the Strasbourg court decided on 4 May 2001 that the United Kingdom had not complied with this obligation: McKerr v United Kingdom (2002) 34 EHRR 20. The shortcomings were summarised in paragraph 157 of the judgment: the police officers who investigated were not independent from the officers implicated; there was no public scrutiny or involvement of the victim's family in the investigation or the decision of the DPP not to prosecute; the abandonment of the inquest prevented any findings which could have played an effective role in securing a prosecution for any criminal offence disclosed; statements by witnesses who appeared at the inquest were not disclosed in advance to the family; the PII certificate deprived the inquest of relevant evidence; the police officers who shot Mr. McKerr were not compellable witnesses; the police investigation was too slow; the inquest did not commence promptly and then went on too long.
The Court accordingly found a violation of article 2 and awarded the applicant non-pecuniary damages of £10,000 for "feelings of frustration, distress and anxiety" caused by the inadequacy of the investigation. This sum has been paid. Pursuant to article 46(2) of the Convention, the judgment was sent to the Committee of Ministers which is charged with supervision of its execution. It has, in accordance with its rules, invited the United Kingdom government to inform the Committee of the measures which it has taken in consequence of the judgment. The government has supplied information about legal and administrative changes which have been made but does not propose to hold a fresh investigation into Mr. McKerr's killing. The Committee has not yet decided whether the measures notified by the government amount to compliance with the judgment and with the State's duty under article 52 to satisfy the Committee that its internal law enables the rights under the Convention to be effectively implemented.
So Mr. McKerr says
the Convention gives him the right to an effective investigation;
the Strasbourg court has decided that the United Kingdom has not provided him with one;
he therefore has a continuing right to such an investigation; and
the Secretary of State, in refusing to provide one, is acting in breach of his Convention rights.
Campbell LJ did not accept stage (3) of this reasoning because he said that the obligation to provide an investigation was discharged by the declaration and order for payment of compensation made by the Strasbourg court. The Court of Appeal, in a judgment given by Carswell LJ, accepted all four stages of the reasoning and made a declaration that the Government had "failed to carry out an investigation which complies with the requirements of article 2."
If one keeps the distinction between international and domestic obligations firmly in mind, the fallacy in the respondent's reasoning becomes apparent. It can be illustrated by reference to a passage in the judgment of Jackson J in R (Wright) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] Lloyd's Rep (Med) 478. Mr. Wright was a prisoner who died after an asthma attack in 1996. The judge found that the investigation into his death did not comply with articles 2 and 3. He then considered whether this gave rise to any rights enforceable in judicial review proceedings:
The [Home Secretary] came under an obligation pursuant to articles 2 and 3 of the Convention to set up an effective official investigation. [He] never discharged that obligation. [His] breach of that obligation was not actionable in the English courts before 2 October 2000 .... Can the claimants now claim any remedy pursuant to sections 6, 7 and 8 of the Act for the continuing breach of articles 2 and 3 since 2 October 2000?
Mr Treacy submitted in the alternative that, independently of the 1998 Act, the common law had created a right to an investigation which made it unlawful for the Secretary of State to refuse to order one. In my opinion this is an impossible contention. It is true that in R (Amin) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] 3 WLR 1169 Lord Bingham of Cornhill said (at p. 1185) that "a profound respect for the sanctity of human life underpins the common law as it underpins the jurisprudence under articles 1 and 2 of the Convention." It is perfectly true that the sanctity of life is a value which has directed the development of the common law and the enactment of many statutes which are intended to protect life, provide for the investigation of unnatural deaths and secure the detection and punishment of those who unlawfully kill. A number of statutes concerned with inquests into deaths in England and Wales are mentioned by Lord Bingham in paragraphs 16 and 17 of his judgment and there are similar statutes applicable to Northern Ireland. Some of the grounds upon which the Strasbourg court found that the investigative procedures in Mr. McKerr's case did not satisfy article 2 (for example, the rule by which a person suspected of causing the death was not a compellable witness and the limited nature of the verdicts which could be returned by the coroner's jury) were deficiencies in these statutory provisions. But no successful challenge to the legality of the various investigative procedures (the criminal trial, the police inquiries, the inquest) was made at the time and it is far too late to make such a challenge now. Nor is any attempt being made to invoke domestic law procedures to quash the decision of the coroner to abandon the inquest or require another to be held.
[T]he Court has found that the national authorities failed in their obligation to carry out a prompt and effective investigation into the circumstances of the death. The applicant must thereby have suffered feelings of frustration, distress and anxiety. The Court considers that the applicant sustained some non-pecuniary damage which is not sufficiently compensated by the finding of a violation as a result of the Convention.
The argument essentially comes to this. Under domestic law it only became unlawful for a public authority to act incompatibly with a Convention right on 2 October 2000. Whatever the circumstances of Mr. McKerr's death, therefore, Article 2 of the Convention was not engaged by it. On the domestic plane the appellant could not be said to have breached the substantive obligations arising under Article 2. Nor, moreover, could he be said to have breached the procedural obligation to hold a sufficient inquiry into the death — an obligation which the ECtHR first found to be implicit in Article 2 in McCann v United Kingdom (1995) 21 EHRR 97 (the Death on the Rock case) and has developed in subsequent caselaw to the point now reached in this very case, McKerr v United Kingdom (2001) 34 EHRR 20 (and the other three Northern Ireland cases determined in parallel with it). Plainly no Article 2 obligation to investigate McKerr's death could arise under domestic law prior to 2 October 2000. But no more could it arise after that date. It is a procedural obligation properly to be regarded as secondary or ancillary or adjectival to the substantive obligation to protect life, an obligation arising directly out of the loss of a life. True it is that in McCann, where this procedural duty was first articulated, the ECtHR said that "where a victim dies in circumstances which are unclear .... the lack of any effective procedure to investigate the cause of the deprivation of life could by itself raise an issue under Article 2 of the Convention" (para 193 of the Court's judgment), and true it is too that in the subsequent Strasbourg jurisprudence it has been described as a "freestanding" obligation. That, however, means no more than that the procedural duty arises independently of any demonstrable breach of the substantive obligations arising under Article 2. As stated in paragraph 111 of McKerr itself:
The essential purpose of such investigation is to secure the effective implementation of the domestic laws which protect the right to life and, in those cases involving State agents or bodies, to ensure their accountability for deaths occurring under their responsibility.
Such is the argument and to my mind it is irresistible. To say, as Mr. Treacy QC for the respondent does, that the procedural obligation, once engaged, is a continuing one, regarded by the ECtHR here as still continuing at the date of their decision in 2001, is nothing to the point. Even were it so (and, as I shall shortly come to explain, for my part I doubt it is), that would be the position only on the international plane. It would say nothing as to whether, on the true interpretation and application of the 1998 Act, a pre-2 October 2000 death could give rise to a procedural obligation to hold an Article 2 compliant investigation enforceable under domestic law on and after 2 October 2000.
As for Mr. Treacy's alternative contention that, irrespective of whether a right to an Article 2 compliant investigation now arises under section 6 of the 1998 Act, a duty to hold such an investigation in any event arises at common law, and indeed has remained unfulfilled ever since Mr. McKerr's death, this in my opinion fails both on authority and principle. By the same token that this House in R v Lyons [2003] 1 AC 976, declined, by reference to a subsequent ECtHR ruling, to hold a pre-1998 Act trial, conducted in accordance with the domestic laws and standards then applicable, unsafe, so too here it would be wrong for your Lordships to condemn as contrary to the common law a series of procedures long since properly concluded in accordance with well-established domestic laws and never challenged save by reference to a substantially later ECHR decision. Nor would it be right to impute to the common law a requirement for the same form of investigation of fatalities as the ECtHR has now found implicit in Article 2. Such a fiction would be unwarranted however profound one's desire to interpret domestic law down the years consistently with our international obligations.
I return, as promised, to indicate why for my part I would question Mr. Treacy's assertion that the ECtHR's judgment should be understood as a finding that the United Kingdom remains under an international law obligation to hold a further investigation into Mr. McKerr's death. Immaterial though, for reasons already explained, the correctness of this assertion is to the determination of the appeal, it would be unfortunate if the impression were gained that it was necessarily accepted by your Lordships.
The following points should be made.
First, that the ECtHR, by reference to a number of identified shortcomings in the various investigative processes long since concluded in this case, found "that there has been a failure to comply with the procedural obligation imposed by Article 2 of the Convention and that there has been, in this respect, a violation of that provision." (para 161). There is nothing in the judgment to suggest that this violation is to be regarded as a continuing one.
Secondly, it is plain that, 20 years on from Mr. McKerr's death, no fresh inquiry could possibly comply fully with the now established requirements of an Article 2 investigation. Perhaps most obviously, the opportunity for a prompt independent investigation has been irretrievably lost; this element of a compliant inquiry would necessarily be missing.
Thirdly, it has now been left by the Court to the Committee of Ministers to supervise the execution of its judgment pursuant to Article 46((2) of the Convention. That Committee may or may not sanction the United Kingdom's present proposal, which is to hold no further inquiry into Mr. McKerr's death. But even if it does not, such further inquiry as may be stipulated could only be by way of partial redress or remedy for past failures. Merely because the Committee of Ministers may judge some further inquiry "effective" does not mean that it would be compliant.
In short, the most that is achievable now on the international plane is further redress for past non-compliance. It accordingly follows that, even were the domestic court, despite the non-retrospectivity of the 1998 Act, able to entertain Article 2 complaints in respect of pre-October 2000 deaths, the respondent would in any event be unable to establish that an Article 2 procedural obligation in respect of Mr. McKerr's death arose after October 2000. The complaint would not be of a proposed post-October 2000 unlawful act (the refusal to comply with the implied procedural obligation to investigate) but rather of a pre-October 2000 breach and manifestly the respondent could have no right in domestic law to complain about that.
McKerr v United Kingdom (2002) 34 EHRR 20; McKerr v Armagh Coroner [1990] 1 WLR 649; R v Attorney General for Northern Ireland, ex p Devine [1992] 1 WLR 262; Wilson v First County Trust Ltd (No 2) [2003] UKHL 40, [2003] 3 WLR 568; McCann v United Kingdom (1996) 21 EHRR 97; McCann v The United Kingdom (1995) 21 EHRR 97; Jordan v United Kingdom (2003) 37 EHRR 2; R (Amin) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2003] UKHL 51, [2003] 3 WLR 1169; R (Middleton) v Coroner for the Western District of Somerset [2004] UKHL 10; R (Wright) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] LLR (Med) 478; R (Khan) v Secretary of State for Health [2003] EWHC 1414 (Admin); Hurst v Coroner for the Northern District of London [2003] EWHC 1721 (Admin); R v Lyons [2003] 1 AC 976; R v Lyons [2002] UKHL 44, [2003] 1 AC 976; In re McCaughey (Unreported) 20 January 2004; R v Lambert [2002] 2 AC 545; R v Kansal (No. 2) [2002] 2 AC 69; J. H. Rayner (Mincing Lane) Ltd v Department of Trade and Industry [1990] 2 AC 418; R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Brind [1991] 1 AC 696; Lewis v Attorney General of Jamaica [2001] 2 AC 50; R v Chief Constable R.U.C. ex parte Begley [1997] 1 WLR 1475
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