LAWYERS for the families of two IRA men shot dead by the security forces in
controversial circumstances went to the House of Lords yesterday to challenge
the way the inquests into their deaths will proceed.
Pearse Jordan was shot dead by an RUC officer after the stolen car he was
driving was involved in a collision with a police vehicle on the Falls Road in
west Belfast in 1992.
Martin McCaughey was shot dead near Loughgall, Co Armagh, by an undercover SAS
unit two years earlier.
Jordan’s father Hugh, who successfully took the government to the European Court
of Human Rights in 2001 for a breach of its obligations under the European
Convention on Human Rights, is seeking to secure changes to the inquests system
to permit a jury in the north to return a verdict of unlawful killing.
McCaughey’s father Owen is seeking to compel the chief constable to produce
documents relevant to his son’s death and the report of the RUC’s investigating
officer.
In January 2002 Mr Justice Weatherup ordered the documents’ disclosure.
The chief constable successfully appealed the ruling in January 2005.
The solicitor for the families, Peter Madden, said: “The decision of the House
of Lords will have profound implications for the manner in which inquests shall
be conducted... in Northern Ireland.”