Labour's Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will return to the House of Commons later on Monday for hours of debate before MPs vote on proposed changes to the legislation. Last week, the government published hundreds of amendments, including that the attorney general must provide consent for any serious prosecutions related to the Troubles under the new plan. The legislation seeks to deal with the unresolved legacy of the decades-long violent conflict which cost the lives of more than 3,500 people.
It has been more than a year since it was first introduced to Parliament, following agreement on a joint framework with the Irish government. A debate known as the "committee of the whole house" will take place on Monday, with its remaining Commons' stages on Tuesday. If it is passed by MPs, it will then move to the House of Lords for further consideration.
NI Secretary defends planned changes to Troubles bill Attorney general approval required for serious Troubles prosecutions New legislation on Troubles legacy deal introduced in Westminster The government has defended the changes it is hoping to get support for, with Secretary of State Sir Chris Bryant saying the bill will help provide answers for many families. However, it has received a mixed response from political parties in Northern Ireland, as well as from victims and veterans' groups. Sinn Féin said the plans amounted to a "veterans' charter", while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) accused the government of seeking to rush through the bill without a proper chance for MPs to scrutinise it.
Mark Thompson from the victims' group Relatives For Justice said he feared the bill could lead to unlawful killings being covered up by the state. "Essentially, this impacts the victims of collusion and state violence," he told the BBC's Sunday Politics programme. He accused the government of trying to take "control" away from local courts because it did not like some of the recent rulings in Troubles-era cases.
He pointed out that judges had ruled against the Army in "dozens" of inquests into killings carried out by soldiers, including those at Ballymurphy and Springhill. Thompson argued that local courts had provided a "level playing field" but instead the government caved under pressure from the Army veterans' lobby in London. "What they [the government] want to do is lift it out of a rule of law process and bring it to London and have a political decision." However, lawyer Philip Barden, who has represented several ex-soldiers, claimed Army veterans were "put through the mill" in cases where there was "no evidence".
"What we want is an independent process so its not the PPS and the DPP deciding in Northern Ireland who it is who should be prosecuted," Barden told the programme. "We, frankly, wanted a Supreme Court judge as being the most independent person that we could conceive of - not being a political appointment. "The government have come up with the attorney general of the UK, who of course makes many decisions to prosecute people." Barden defended the government's choice, saying if people disagreed with the UK attorney general's decisions they could always seek a judicial review.
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