The State must not withhold the truth
Just days before Christmas, the UK Supreme Court delivered a judgment with profound implications for truth and accountability in legacy cases in Northern Ireland, writes Gráinne Teggart, Northern Ireland Deputy Director, Amnesty International UK.
The ruling in Thompson concerned the 1994 murder of Paul Thompson in west Belfast and long standing allegations of state collusion. For many families, it raised deep concern that there is now a shift away from truth, away from victims, and towards the consolidation of state secrecy.
The case concerned a legacy inquest in which the coroner sought to provide the Thompson family with a limited “gist” of information relating to their loved one’s killing.
Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland upheld that approach.
The Supreme Court overturned those decisions. Victims now fear that giving weight to claims of national security could restrict a coroner’s ability to share even partial information and enable the Secretary of State to conceal the involvement of state agents in killings during the conflict.
What is striking about the ruling is not only what it says about state power, but what it fails to say about victims’ rights. Government must not try to use this judgment to reinforce a culture of cover-up and impunity, and determine what truth is disclosed; especially when that truth concerns its own conduct.
For families who have spent decades seeking answers, this is not merely disappointing; it is the State closing ranks against grieving relatives. National security is not legitimate when its purpose or effect is to conceal state wrongdoing.
Despite claims of commitment to victims and a ‘joint framework’ with the Irish Government, the message from Westminster in this and other appeals is one of continued secrecy and concealment; a very different signal from the one many victims hoped for with the Legacy Act being repealed.
Important questions must be asked.
What does it mean when the State is given the final say on what truth is revealed, particularly when it is itself under suspicion? It means that the promise of accountability becomes illusory, and that victims’ access to truth is reduced to a matter of Executive discretion. That is not a foundation on which trust in addressing the past can be built. Victims’ right to truth must be realised.
This ruling comes at a pivotal moment. The Government’s new Troubles Bill will continue its passage through Parliament. That legislation will shape how this society confronts its past for generations. The Government must not use national security as a guise to entrench secrecy.
The Government now stands at a crossroads. One path leads further into the familiar terrain of obfuscation, denial, and managed truth, an era that has already inflicted enormous damage on victims and on public confidence. The other offers a chance to turn a page: to choose transparency over concealment, accountability over institutional self-protection, and to finally draw a clear line under decades of betrayal.
If ministers are serious about a new approach to the past, they must demonstrate it in the substance of the legislation now before Parliament. That means ensuring that victims’ rights to truth and effective investigation are placed at the heart of the system, not subordinated to sweeping claims of national security. It means recognising that secrecy may protect the State in the short term, but it corrodes legitimacy in the long term.
For families, Thompson already feels like a bad day for truth, justice, and accountability. What happens next, in Parliament and in government, will determine whether it becomes part of a broader pattern of retreat, or a moment that finally provokes a different, better course.
All eyes will be watching.
