JUN-24-97 MON 07:24 AM BEST WESTERN SKYLINE IN

2024888790

access to legal advice during interrogation.' Both the United Nations Committee on Torture in both 1991 and 1995" and the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture in 1995 have expressed strong concern that conditions for the interrogation of those suspected of terrorist offenses in Northern Ireland create a significant risk of the mistreatment of suspects. The United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1995 also expressed concern that permitting courts to draw inferences from the silence of suspects (especially when coupled with the denial of access to legal representation) compromised the protection of the right to fair trial.'

These are significant findings in areas of core human rights protections. Moreover they are findings by international tribunals and monitoring bodies who are fully aware of and acknowledge the difficulties faced by the state in the circumstances of Northern Ireland. If a common theme can be discerned in these cases it is the failure of the state to provide adequate, effective and independent means for reviewing the conduct of the law enforcement authorities, especially where they have been granted increased powers. A consistent theme of law enforcement policies in Northern Ireland over the past twenty eight years has been that a combination of violence and intimidation, plus the need for quick results in serious cases, makes normal law enforcement based on the co-operation of the public very difficult. Hence the adoption of measures such as non jury courts, lengthy periods of detention for questioning and the drawing of inferences from silence which reduce reliance on the co-operation of the public. The constant danger with such measures is that they risk sections of the public increasingly seeing law enforcement as something that is done to them rather than for them, hence fuelling lack of confidence in the law enforcement agencies and turning the lack of public support on which such policies are based into a self fulfilling prophecy. Such suspicions that increased law enforcement powers are merely a cover for arbitrary law enforcement action are fuelled when mechanisms do not exist to render law enforcement transparent and accountable. The continuing controversy over the Bloody Sunday shootings of 1972 is perhaps the most significant example of how lack of adequate scrutiny mechanisms can engender public distrust and suspicion.

Hence from a human rights perspective there is a need for changes which would render law enforcement more transparent and accountable in Northern Ireland, something which in turn should ensure compliance with international human rights standards. A fully independent system for the investigation of complaints against the police, video and audio taping of all police interrogation of suspects, judicial review of any extensions of detention for questioning beyond 48 hours, unqualified access of lawyers to their clients in custody and better procedures at

"I have discussed a number of these cases in greater length in Livingstone, "Reviewing Northern Ireland in Strasbourg 196994" (1995) Irish Human Rights Yearbook 15

JUN-24-97 MON 07:25 AM BEST) WESTERN SKYLINE IN

As a human rights lawyer who has experience of,studying the human
rights situation in a number of countries around the world I
believe that it is important to get the situation in Northern
Ireland in perspective. There are many parts of the world where
human rights are more consistently violated than in Northern
Ireland. Moreover Northern Ireland over the past twenty eight
years has been the site of sustained campaigns of political
violence by armed groups both opposed to and in favour of the
current constitutional arrangements. Unlike many of the conflicts
with which Northern Ireland is so often compared, such as central
America, South Africa or the Middle East the vast majority of the
killings in the Northern Ireland conflict (around 90%) can be
attributed to those groups rather than the state. These groups
have killed around five times as many police officers and
soldiers than police officers and soldiers have killed of them
and over ten times as many people without any affiliation than
have been killed by agents of the state. These facts are well
known, and the threat which political violence poses to the
security of all the people of Northern Ireland has regularly been
accepted by international human rights monitoring bodies as
permitting the state to derogate to some extent from its human
rights commitments.

However as a human rights lawyer its is also deeply
disturbing that the United Kingdom, one of the prime movers in
the creation of international human rights law after world war
two, continues to be found in breach of particularly fundamental
human rights provisions in relation to Northern Ireland. Remember
this is breach of what are acknowledged to be internationally
agreed minimum human rights standards and standards which are
structured so as to permit states to take necessary steps to
protect the rights of others in times of crisis. In the forum of
the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg for example the
United Kingdom has been found to have breached the right to
protection against inhuman and degrading treatment in the 1978
Ireland v United Kingdom case on interrogation conditions and
the right to life in the 1995 McCann' case on the Gibraltar
shootings. It has also been found to have breached the right to
liberty in the 1989 Brogan' case on seven day detention after
arrest and the 1990 Fox, Campbell and Hartleys case on the
operation of emergency arrest powers, and to have breached the
right to fair trial in the 1996 Murray case in connection with

1

For example by the European Court of Human Rights in
Brannigan and McBride v United Kingdom 19 European Human Rights
Reports 193 (1994)

2 2 European Human Rights Reports 25 (1978)
21 European Human Rights Reports 97 (1995)
'11 European Human Rights Reports 117 (1989)
'13 European Human Rights Reports 157 (1990)

JUN-24-97 MON 07:26 AM BEST) WESTERN SKYLINE IN

2024880798

inquests would all be high on that list. All of these are achievable without rendering the law enforcement authorities incapable of performing their legitimate tasks of preventing and detecting crime, including politically motivated violence. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, promised by the current government, is a welcome step but this must be supported by giving powers to an independent Human Rights Commission (whether an improved Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights or some new body) to scrutinise its enforcement and initiate litigation where it feels the Convention is breached. It would be naive to believe that effective enforcement of human rights alone would resolve Northern Ireland's conflicts. It is true to say that the protection of human rights is more likely to flourish in a time of peace. Moreover exactly how certain rights are given effect to in Northern Ireland is itself likely to be the expression of a political settlement. However measures to enhance the protection of certain basic rights like those to life, freedom from torture, liberty and fair trial are both right in themselves and might contribute to an atmosphere of greater public trust and confidence in which a settlement is more likely to be achieved.

Jun-23-9/ 10:41

P.02

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

A HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT, COPYRIGHT © HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ISSN: 1041-9197

STATEMENT

OF

JULIA A. HALL

W. BRADFORD WILEY FELLOW
NORTHERN IRELAND RESEARCHER

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

JUNE 24, 1997

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Jun-23-97 10:41

Human Rights Watch believes that it is a particularly important moment for the Subcommittec on International Operations and Human Rights to turn its attention to Northern Ireland. The protection of individual rights and the maintenance of the rule of law are essential to advancing the peace in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, attempts by state authorities to control the conflict there have created an environment in which human rights violations are routine. This erosion of civil liberties and human rights in the interests of security and public order has, in many ways, served to exacerbate the conflict. Thus, any effort to build trust and confidence in the peace process must include immediate and careful attention to the protection of human rights for all of Northern Ireland's citizens.

We understand that recent events have had a negative impact on the peace talks. The brutal murders of three police officers in the last month have shocked and saddened all those committed to peace. These senseless killings, coupled with serious tensions-with great potential for violence arising from the annual marching season, signal an urgent need to resume efforts to create trust in all Northern Ireland's communities so that people have more of an investment in advancing the peace than they do in perpetrating or supporting acts of violence.

Human Rights Watch's research and advocacy in the past year has focused on the reform of policing in Northern Ireland. This focus was a direct response to the final report of the International Body on Arms Decommissioning chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and tasked in 1995 with providing to the multi-party peace talks an acceptable plan for the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in Northern Ireland. However, the International Body wisely recognized that success in the peace process could not be achieved solely by focusing on the decommissioning of weapons. To create trust in the peace process, confidence-building measures would also be necessary, including the normalization of policing, a review of the use of plastic bullets, a more balanced religious representation in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland's police force (which is currently 90 percent Protestant), and the cessation of paramilitary punishment assaults. Human Rights Watch's report To Serve Without Favor: Policing, Human Rights, and Accountability in Northern Ireland, released in May 1997, addresses all of these issues.

Let me lay out for the Subcommittee some of our specific concerns. First, the policing of the upcoming marching season is a matter of urgent concern for Human Rights Watch. The marching phenomenon involves the ongoing dispute between Protestant fraternal orders supported by the unionist community and predominantly Catholic nationalist communities organized to oppose Protestant marches through Catholic areas. A detailed investigation by Human Rights Watch of last year's marching season strongly indicates that a series of police actions-sanctioned by the government of the United Kingdom-exacerbated the intercommunal conflict and contributed to an effective breakdown in the rule of law. The failure of state authorities to maintain the rule of law occurred when police officials reversed an earlier decision to reroute a loyalist march and allowed the march to proceed down the predominantly Catholic Garvaghy Road under threat of unionist mob violence. In the aftermath of this extraordinary reversal, the RUC's strategy for dealing with nationalist protesters involved the use of brutal force in contravention of international standards.

P.03