The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that 11 people killed by the security forces in Northern Ireland had their human rights violated.
The authorities were also judged to have violated the human rights of a 12th victim who was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries.
For the first time in such a case, the court ordered the British government to pay £10,000 compensation to relatives of each of the victims.
The court was considering four cases concerning nine people killed during an ambush at Loughgall in 1987, two unarmed men shot dead by the RUC and a Sinn Fein activist who was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries.
The seven judges declined to rule whether the men had been killed unlawfully on the basis that a court in the UK was better placed to determine the facts of each case.
But the court ruled that in all four cases the authorities had failed to conduct the proper investigation into the deaths, thus violating Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. "If the aims of fact-finding, criminal investigation and prosecution were carried out or shared between several authorities, as in Northern Ireland, the court considered that the requirements of Article 2 might nonetheless be satisfied if, while seeking to take into account other legitimate interests such as national security or the protection of material relevant to other investigations, they provided for the necessary safeguards in an accessible and effective manner. However, in all four cases the available procedures had not struck the right balance," the judges said.
The court condemned the lack of independence of the investigating police officers from the security forces implicated in the incidents and recommended the creation of a fully independent agency to investigate complaints against the police.
There was a lack of public scrutiny and victims' relatives were not given enough information.
In the case of eight IRA men and an unarmed civilian killed at Loughgall, the court complained that soldiers who fired the shots could not be required to testify at the inquest.
The court upheld the complaint of relatives of Patrick Shanaghan, who was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1991, that the inquest excluded an investigation into alleged collusion between the security forces and loyalist terrorist groups.
"In all four cases the court observed that the shortcomings in transparency and effectiveness identified ran counter to the purpose identified by the domestic courts of allaying suspicions and rumours. Proper procedures for insuring the accountability of agents of the state were indispensable, maintaining public confidence and meeting the legitimate concerns that might arise from the use of lethal force.
"Lack of such procedures would only add fuel to fears of sinister motivations, as was illustrated among other things by the submissions made concerning the alleged shoot-to-kill policy," the judges said.
In the case of Gervaise McKerr, who was shot dead by the RUC in 1982, the court complained that the inquest did not allow for any verdict that might secure a prosecution for a criminal offence. The police officers involved in the shooting could not be required to testify at the inquest.
"The court observed that the lack of independence of the RUC investigation and the lack of transparency regarding the subsequent inquiry into the alleged police obstruction in that investigation might be regarded as lying at the heart of the problems in the procedures which followed. The domestic courts commented that the inquest was not the proper forum for dealing with the wider issues in the case. No other public-accessible procedure, however, was forthcoming to remedy the short comings," the judges said.
An appeal can be lodged within three months.
On Line
The full text of the four judgments of the European Court of Human Rights is available on The Irish Times website at: www.ireland.com
