Court of Appeal upholds "shoot to kill"
case
16 January, 2003 --
The family of IRA Volunteer Gervaise McKerr, who was
killed by the RUC in a shoot to kill operation on 11
November 1982, has welcomed the judgement of the Court of
Appeal in Belfast that the British government failed to
properly investigate the shootings 20 years ago.
McKerr, together with Volunteers Eugene Toman and Sean
Burns, was ambushed by the RUC near Lurgan in 1982. All
three were unarmed when they were killed.
In May 2001, the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg ruled that the British government had breached
the Right to Life in the cases of 12 people who were killed
by the British Army and RUC. Since then, the British
government has consistently refused to provide any effective
investigation into the McKerr case and others, arguing that
the killings happened before the European Convention on
Human Rights was incorporated into British domestic law in
October 2000.
The McKerr family tested the new European Court ruling in
the High Court in Belfast, however Judge Campbell dismissed
the finding of the European Court on the grounds that McKerr
was not entitled to a declaration, as the case had been
settled when the European Court awarded his family £10,000
compensation. The family appealed this ruling.
McKerr's lawyer, Angela Ritchie of Madden and Finucane,
argued that the killings had breached article two of the
European Convention of Human Rights, the right to life, and
that the trial of three RUC men who were acquitted of murder
had not met the aims of reassuring the McKerr family and the
public as to the lawfulness of the killings.
In delivering the appeal court's decision on Friday 10
January, Lord Chief Justice Carswell, sitting with two other
judges, declared that the appellant's claim "is well founded
and we propose to make a declaration that the government has
failed to carry out an investigation which complies with
article two".
Speaking afterwards, Angela Ritchie said the judgement is
not only a vindication for the McKerr family, but for all
families who were denied any effective investigation into
the killing of a family member by the state.
"The British government has attempted to delay giving effect
to the rights of the McKerr family since the landmark
judgement of the European Court of Human Rights delivered
two years ago, and even now seek to further delay satisfying
their obligations under the Right to Life provisions, by
seeking to appeal this judgement to the British House of
Lords," she said.
Meanwhile, hopes are high that there will finally be a full
investigation into the killing by the RUC of 23-year-old
Pearse Jordan after Friday's landmark judgement. The unarmed
IRA Volunteer from New Barnsley was shot dead after the RUC
rammed his car on the Falls Road in November 1992.
Pearse Jordan's father Hugh said the judgement had given the
family fresh hope in their ten-year fight for a proper
investigation into the killing.
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