Troubles Bill amendments risk reopening ex-servicemen investigations, veterans commissioner warns

The government's amendments to the Troubles Bill have drawn criticism from the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, David Johnston, who has warned that the wording could reopen investigations into former security force personnel. He said the changes could potentially open the floodgates to reinvestigations of cases that had been investigated and closed decades ago.

At the centre of the dispute is the proposed legacy commission. Under the amendments, any victim of the Troubles or a close relative could refer a case to the commission. The commission would then investigate, a process that critics say would lead to repeat inquiries into the same events. The government has said there will be no repeat investigations, but the legislation gives the legacy director power to reinvestigate any matter he considers essential. The word essential is not defined. The amendments cite examples such as new evidence or a flaw in a previous investigation, but they do not set a threshold for either.

Philip Barden, a partner at Devonshires Solicitors, said the lack of a threshold is a serious problem. He argued that any lawyer who has worked in Northern Ireland could find a flaw in a previous investigation. He proposed that all material should go to the legacy commission, which should be allowed to examine historic papers, but that it should engage with veterans only where there is new and compelling evidence. He also said the current protections are aimed at witnesses, while most soldiers involved in Troubles cases are not witnesses. They are people who fired weapons at terrorists and are treated as suspects.

The debate also raised the position of former IRA members. Barden said there had been no truth and justice process of the kind used in South Africa. He said known IRA figures such as Martin McGuinness would have been required to attend and answer questions in such a process, and that security services information about them could have been released. Instead, he said, those people have vanished from the process.

Geoff Hoon, a former Defence Secretary, said he had become concerned about the one-sided nature of the government's approach while in office and afterwards. He accepted that the decisions were taken for the right reasons as part of a peace process that has held, but said he could see the problem now facing the government. His proposed solution was straightforward: no more prosecutions, no more coroner's inquests, and no more investigations of elderly men who often served with distinction in Britain's armed forces.

The debate also considered whether a statute of limitations should apply. The host noted that some cases date back to 1972, 54 years ago, and asked whether they could still be relitigated in another decade. Barden said there must be a line. He called for a compulsory bar on reinvestigation unless there is new and compelling evidence certified by a judge outside Northern Ireland. He gave examples: if a terrorist or a bomb maker can be identified, that could count as new and compelling evidence and a prosecution could follow. What should not happen, he said, is repeated cases against soldiers, some of whom have been investigated four or five times. He said the process was not about truth or justice but about damaging people.

Barden also gave details of a case he is handling. He said the soldier is waiting for a Supreme Court hearing on whether he will have to continue with his case, a process expected to take four or five months, after nine years of litigation. He cited the case of Soldiers A and C, who shot Joe McCann in 1972. He said they were seen by the Historical Enquiries Team in 2009, prosecuted in 2016, and that the prosecution service in Northern Ireland was told there was no evidence. It took until 2021 for a judge to agree there was no evidence, and in 2024 a fresh inquest was ordered. The sequence was described as fundamentally wrong.