Committee of Ministers takes stock of United
Kingdom reforms
and calls for further measures to comply with judgments of
the European Court of Human Rights on Northern Ireland
24th February 2005 --
Strasbourg, 24.02.2005 - The Committee of Ministers has
adopted an Interim Resolution on the execution by the United Kingdom of a number
of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. The judgments found
violations of Article 2 of the European Convention (right to life) in Northern
Ireland due to the failure to conduct effective investigations into the deaths
of the applicants' next-of-kin (cases of Jordan, McKerr, Kelly and others,
Shanaghan, McShane and Finucane).
The Committee took note with interest of measures taken or
under way to remedy failings found in the investigative procedures concerning
these deaths at the hands of the police or armed forces in Northern Ireland or
in circumstances giving rise to allegations of collusion between the security
forces and the killers.
The Committee recalled its consistent position that there is
a continuing obligation to conduct effective investigations inasmuch as
procedural violations of Article 2 were found in these cases. It called on the
Government to take all outstanding individual measures in these cases rapidly
and to keep the Committee regularly informed of the measures taken.
Some of the recent measures which are subject to the
Committee's on-going assessment include the Inquiries Bill - which is intended
to serve as a basis for a further inquiry in one of the cases - and the
recommendations made to improve the coroners' system following the Luce Review.
The European Court's judgments require states to adopt all
measures necessary to grant applicants appropriate redress and to prevent
similar violations in future. This process is supervised by the Committee of
Ministers.
The full text of the Interim Resolution, which provides a
comprehensive picture of the measures taken or under way in these cases, is
available at:
http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/press/News/2005/20050224_rec_cm.asp
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