A United Nations report published today accuses the RUC of widespread intimidation of lawyers representing republican and loyalist suspects and calls for an independent investigation into the UDA murder of Pat Finucane, a Belfast solicitor. Mr Finucane was shot 14 times in front of his wife and three children in 1989.
The report, compiled by the UN Commission on Human Rights and published in Geneva, is also said to call for an independent inquiry into the alleged RUC "intimidation" of lawyers.
The report was drawn up by a Malaysian jurist, Mr Param Cumaraswamy, the UN Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. He was the first UN rapporteur to visit Northern Ireland, carrying out his fact-finding mission in the North and in England in October last year.
Mr Cumaraswamy's report concludes "that the RUC has engaged in activities which constitute intimidation, hindrance or improper interference. The Special Rapporteur is particularly concerned by the fact that the RUC has identified solicitors with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions," he says.
The call for an inquiry into the murder of Mr Finucane is based on suspicion of British security force collusion in his killing, it is stated.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice in the North said the recommendations would be highly embarrassing for the British government. "We expect this to be the most critical official report ever issued on the UK's human rights record in Northern Ireland," the committee's legal officer, Mr Paul Mageean, said in Geneva yesterday.
On the murder of Mr Finucane, the UN report alleges: "Prior to his murder, Patrick Finucane received a number of death threats from RUC officers, mainly delivered via his clients." One of Mr Finucane's clients testified that the RUC threatened to pass on information about the lawyer to loyalist paramilitaries.
The report says: "As a high-profile lawyer who had tremendous success representing his clients, both before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights, his murder had a chilling effect on the profession and further undermined public confidence in the judicial system.
"Solicitors informed the Special Rapporteur that the murder led them either to give up criminal practice entirely or to alter the manner in which they handled terrorist-related cases. Thus, the defendant's right to counsel was compromised. It was also learned that several lawyers armed themselves for self-defence and their houses were equipped with security devices."
The report warned: "So long as this murder is unresolved, many in the community will continue to lack confidence in the ability of the government to dispense justice in a fair and equitable manner."
Among its conclusions, the UN report recommends:
That as a matter of urgency the RUC should organise training seminars for police officers to "sensitise" them to the important role defence solicitors play;
To ensure that the principle of immediate access to counsel is respected, that the Prevention of Terrorism Act be amended to prohibit deferral of access;
That the right to have a solicitor present during interrogations be respected;
That the right to silence be restored, and that the Bar Council and Law Society be more vocal in their defence of solicitors who are subjected to harassment.
The report says most lawyers see little point in making official complaints as investigations would be carried out by the RUC itself. "Many referred to the harassment and intimidation as an occupational hazard that they had come to expect and accept," it adds.
The report could serve to re-open the Finucane murder case. Mr Finucane, a solicitor with republican family connections, regularly appeared in IRA cases. He was shot dead at his north Belfast home in 1989 by the UDA. A number of Belfast solicitors claimed the RUC had deliberately tarnished Mr Finucane, accusing him and other solicitors of being in the IRA.
It subsequently emerged during the trial of Brian Nelson, a UDA intelligence officer who was also a British army agent, that Nelson had information that the UDA may have been planning to murder Mr Finucane.
The report notes that a month before the killing, Mr Douglas Hogg, then a British Home Office Minister, said "a number of lawyers" in Northern Ireland "are unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA".
The report says: "Outstanding questions surrounding the murder demonstrate the need for an independent judicial inquiry. So long as this murder is unresolved, many in the community will continue to lack confidence in the ability of the government to dispense justice in a fair and equitable manner."
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, raised the matter with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, during a telephone conversation yesterday.
