Comments for Report of the Consultative Group on the Past http://www.consultationonthepast.org A Slugger O'Toole commentblog Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:40:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 Comment on Understanding perspectives and defining victims by Simon Riley http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=93&cpage=1#comment-25 Simon Riley Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:14:08 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=93#comment-25 David Trimble talked about the 'moral vacuum at the heart of the Peace Process' - a process I support but this definition of victims is the Peace Process at its worst. This kind of messy half-truth damages trust in the reconciliation process, it does not build it. The report says there was "a lack of agreement on a definition of a victim" and that debate on the topic is "fruitless and self-defeating". It then suggests the way to deal with the question is to leave the issue aside in favour of a focus on the needs of "victims and survivors". This is highly confusing, surely. It is saying on the one hand, let's leave this sterile debate about who is a victim and focus on, inter alia, victims. Eh? There is no rationale given here as to why they have fallen upon the highly unsatisfactory definition of victim that they have, i.e. to include anyone injured by terrorism, even if they were themselves a terrorist. Quite apart from the ludicrous definition of victim they have ended up with, the thinking is very poorly argued. Ona wider note, we all had to make a historic compromise with former terrorists in order to get society going again after the terrorists decided to stop. However, this does not oblige us as a society to treat their pleas of victimhood seriously - whether loyalist or republican. It is not enough to say that all perspectives are equally valid when it comes to terrorism. Terrorism is wrong. Murder in a police uniform is wrong too. Terrorists (and those few members of the security forces involved in illegal actions) cannot be treated as 'victims' without debasing the language and the memory of real victims. Most of us were did not want the Troubles - but this definition of 'victim' drags us onto the same level as the idiots who killed and threatened us for 30 years. There should be no moral ambiguity over telling terrorists they have no right to be regarded as victims. If their own support networks want to do this, that is their weakness, but society as a whole should not be brought down to their level, surely. David Trimble talked about the ‘moral vacuum at the heart of the Peace Process’ - a process I support but this definition of victims is the Peace Process at its worst. This kind of messy half-truth damages trust in the reconciliation process, it does not build it.
The report says there was “a lack of agreement on a definition of a victim” and that debate on the topic is “fruitless and self-defeating”. It then suggests the way to deal with the question is to leave the issue aside in favour of a focus on the needs of “victims and survivors”. This is highly confusing, surely. It is saying on the one hand, let’s leave this sterile debate about who is a victim and focus on, inter alia, victims. Eh? There is no rationale given here as to why they have fallen upon the highly unsatisfactory definition of victim that they have, i.e. to include anyone injured by terrorism, even if they were themselves a terrorist. Quite apart from the ludicrous definition of victim they have ended up with, the thinking is very poorly argued.
Ona wider note, we all had to make a historic compromise with former terrorists in order to get society going again after the terrorists decided to stop. However, this does not oblige us as a society to treat their pleas of victimhood seriously - whether loyalist or republican. It is not enough to say that all perspectives are equally valid when it comes to terrorism. Terrorism is wrong. Murder in a police uniform is wrong too. Terrorists (and those few members of the security forces involved in illegal actions) cannot be treated as ‘victims’ without debasing the language and the memory of real victims. Most of us were did not want the Troubles - but this definition of ‘victim’ drags us onto the same level as the idiots who killed and threatened us for 30 years. There should be no moral ambiguity over telling terrorists they have no right to be regarded as victims. If their own support networks want to do this, that is their weakness, but society as a whole should not be brought down to their level, surely.

]]> Comment on CHAPTER 9: Conclusions and the Way Ahead by Brian Walker http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=26&cpage=1#comment-24 Brian Walker Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:37:59 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=26#comment-24 I repeat my earlier comments here for ease of reading and add my own conclusions. The following are my comments in full. Brian Walker’s review of Eames/Bradley: the Consultation on the Past The road map “We hold these truths to be self evident” might have adopted as the motto of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Report on the Past as well as for the preamble to the US Constitution, but with far less justification.  The report’s “road map” identifies reconciliation and a shared future as the desired destination but without much sense of direction for getting there.  The report writers assume a basic moral consensus which does not yet exist.  They hanker after a soft landing from the Troubles and play down the need to learn hard lessons.  They concentrate overmuch on the testimony of victims and survivors, in the apparent belief that if that category can be satisfied, the rest of us will follow.  Preferring to treat the information recovery as a private exercise for relatives, they lack any clear concept of the wider public interest. Their moralistic approach bristles with fallacies, question-begging and assumed answers without analysis. “Resolution “ would have been a better goal than “ reconciliation.” Contrary to their most cherished assumptions, truth telling is not necessarily reconciling; it contains many terrible messages and the results are bound to be unpredictable. Giving closure to some victims and survivors in unlikely to reconcile highly politicised audiences. While a sensitive-seeming approach, private story telling may be a means of learning truth but may also leave lies unchallenged and perpetuate a denial of justice. Rather shockingly, there are Orwellian hints at anaesthetising evidence in order to effect reconciliation. By concentrating on the bereaved and the injured and acting almost like psychotherapists, they ended up with the paradox of a bland analysis leading to controversial conclusions. Eames/Bradley’s most important achievement could have been to convince the ideal “reasonable person” of their way ahead but alas, they did not succeed. The deafening silence following the initial flood of predictable criticism is testimony to that. Legal Processes – or not Eames/Bradley does little to increase public confidence in the judicial system, surely a necessary part of a resolving society. The proposal to rely on the legacy commission and dispense with further public inquiries will certainly fail to reconcile many families or allay wider scepticism and suspicion. The statement on this is breathtakingly presumptuous: “The Group has.... favoured a mechanism which would be private, non-judicial and non-adversarial in preference to the public, judicial or quasi-judicial commissions of other countries.” What will happen to the mountain of collusion evidence in the Stevens reports over say, the Finucane murder if the Finucane family decline to cooperate with the legacy commission? Is the public interest in collusion to remain subject to their wishes and that of those like them? The Report is silent on this; for this is not “nice” story telling, it is “nasty” and unresolved. The abandonment of public inquiries might have been more viable if accompanied by an admission that offers of immunity are meaningless now that the era of prosecution is effectively over. Nevertheless, instead of dispensing with public inquiries so readily, the Group should have canvassed opinions on the future role of judicial and inquiry processes from legally qualified people including the Attorney General, the DPP and the judiciary as well as client lobbies. To be fair, Eames/Bradley were caught up in the distortions to the rule of law created by the peace process. They were hobbled by the refusal of the authorities to admit that the trial phase of the Troubles is over for paramilitaries associated with the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. This reluctance can only be seen as a sop to some of the victims’ lobbies. By falling short of recognising the fact of a de facto amnesty, Eames/Bradley launch their prize recommendation of the Legacy Commission on the shifting sands of evasion. Yet their whole approach suggests they realise the weakness of their position. A voluntary approach to truth telling is the main option left, when neither incentives nor sanctions exist any longer to make people tell the truth. Otherwise, the Report would hardly have dared conclude that “ the very demand for justice can militate against the main goal of reconciliation” and dismiss so casually the conventional view that justice should be done and be seen to be done. One cannot help feeling that Eames/Bradley know full well in their hearts that the era of trials for the Troubles is over but could not pluck up the courage to admit it and go on to explain why this is so. With their considerable moral authority, Eames/Bradley should have mounted open hearings on this core subject of public inquiry during their consultation rather than throwing in the idea of the Legacy Commission without considered open debate. Cynics will say that the commission idea will be music to ministers’ ears. This will hardly endear it to many. Although the investigatory and information-recovery stages of the Legacy Commission are to be carefully separated, attempts to run the two processes plus the thematic stage simultaneously still ring alarm bells. How can an investigator be sure that when he clears a case for disclosure to a family, that the deeds of say, the same IRA ASU will not crop up many years and many cases later? This problem would be obviated if the threat of prosecution, now purely formal, were finally lifted. Disclosure issues How much disclosure and in what forms? The Report is vague. The attempt to restrict the right to see certain documents to families only is no guarantee of security on the one hand and may unduly limit pubic interest disclosure on the other. Despite the efforts made to separate out legal investigation from story telling, there seem ample grounds for confusion and frustration. It would have been useful if the Report had produced from the HET a representative sample of story-telling, fictionalised if necessary. The following is a remarkable piece of wishful thinking: “But the Group does not see the outcome of the information recovery process or thematic examination as blaming or naming individuals. In the process of information recovery, the aim is to resolve unanswered questions. In thematic examination, the purpose is to look at overall accountability, not individual accountability; to identify areas where things went wrong and why they went wrong; to gain greater understanding; to encourage apology where appropriate; and to build a shared and reconciled future.” Where do stories of the nutting squad fit in here? Or informers (inform-ants?) Living ones like Stakeknife or the dead like Denis Donaldson or William Stobie? Castlereagh interrogators? They would hardly be reconciling stories, but they could be part of resolution. What level of access to the files will be given to the public and when? A 30-year or 15 year rule? A further delay for the most sensitive or a special regime? Or immediate release? Who decides and vet the papers? Eames/Bradley neglects to make specific recommendations for what will surely become the most important resource for resolving and assimilating the Troubles: painstaking research, followed by publication and peer review. Conclusions If they had widened and deepened the range of their inquiry to match their ambition and anticipate obvious criticisms, Eames/Bradley would have stood a better chance of retaining the initiative in public debate. They should have exploited their moral authority more, using it to pose fundamental questions, sometimes in public sessions.  Politicians should have been bound into the process openly at the formative stage. On the idea of recognition payments for instance, they would have had to explain to their own public why they would deny payments to their own side’s victims, in order to deny them to their opponents ’ – which might be called cutting off their nose to spite their face. They would also have come under pressure to offer their own ideas rather than merely reacting negatively. As it is, the IRA and all other paramilitaries are taking shelter under the cover of the unionist rejection of recognition payments.  Government, other pubic representatives, legal and police figures should have been examined on the whole range of the Consultation, but especially on the question of replacing judicial public inquiry by private story-telling. It is far from clear for instance, that all aspects of this proposal are human rights compliant. As government is detached from the process, it will be easier for them to kick it into the long grass.  The question of general responsibility before the law should have been examined, as it relates to belief that the Report’s avowedly neutral approach as between public servants defending the State and those attacking it, in reality militates against State servants, where the trail of evidence is usually clearer than for paramilitaries. Do policemen and soldiers have the same or greater obligations under the law than civilians (who may be paramilitaries)? How well observed were the obligations of the State’s legal monopoly of the use of force?  Actuarial and legal assessments might have been made on real need and anomalous treatment especially for victims or the 1970s and 80s, rather than plucking the idea of recognition payments out of the air - or rather from the Celtic Tiger in its glory days. These might have proved a less controversial alternative.  Finally, a new theory of the State for the new Northern Ireland might have been devised and political parties invited to sign up to it. This could be founded on the propositions that the British and Irish identities are complementary rather than contradictory and that the principles of pluralism in the 1998, 2006, 2007 Northern Ireland Acts should be entrenched rather than grudgingly accepted. That would be the past’s best legacy: a contribution to reworking their basic constitution by the Northern Ireland people themselves. …ends I repeat my earlier comments here for ease of reading and add my own conclusions. The following are my comments in full.

Brian Walker’s review of Eames/Bradley: the Consultation on the Past

The road map

“We hold these truths to be self evident” might have adopted as the motto of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Report on the Past as well as for the preamble to the US Constitution, but with far less justification.

 The report’s “road map” identifies reconciliation and a shared future as the desired destination but without much sense of direction for getting there.

 The report writers assume a basic moral consensus which does not yet exist.

 They hanker after a soft landing from the Troubles and play down the need to learn hard lessons.

 They concentrate overmuch on the testimony of victims and survivors, in the apparent belief that if that category can be satisfied, the rest of us will follow.

 Preferring to treat the information recovery as a private exercise for relatives, they lack any clear concept of the wider public interest.

Their moralistic approach bristles with fallacies, question-begging and assumed answers without analysis. “Resolution “ would have been a better goal than
“ reconciliation.”

Contrary to their most cherished assumptions, truth telling is not necessarily reconciling; it contains many terrible messages and the results are bound to be unpredictable. Giving closure to some victims and survivors in unlikely to reconcile highly politicised audiences. While a sensitive-seeming approach, private story telling may be a means of learning truth but may also leave lies unchallenged and perpetuate a denial of justice. Rather shockingly, there are Orwellian hints at anaesthetising evidence in order to effect reconciliation. By concentrating on the bereaved and the injured and acting almost like psychotherapists, they ended up with the paradox of a bland analysis leading to controversial conclusions. Eames/Bradley’s most important achievement could have been to convince the ideal “reasonable person” of their way ahead but alas, they did not succeed. The deafening silence following the initial flood of predictable criticism is testimony to that.

Legal Processes – or not

Eames/Bradley does little to increase public confidence in the judicial system, surely a necessary part of a resolving society. The proposal to rely on the legacy commission and dispense with further public inquiries will certainly fail to reconcile many families or allay wider scepticism and suspicion. The statement on this is breathtakingly presumptuous: “The Group has…. favoured a mechanism which would be private, non-judicial and non-adversarial in preference to the public, judicial or quasi-judicial commissions of other countries.”

What will happen to the mountain of collusion evidence in the Stevens reports over say, the Finucane murder if the Finucane family decline to cooperate with the legacy commission? Is the public interest in collusion to remain subject to their wishes and that of those like them? The Report is silent on this; for this is not “nice” story telling, it is “nasty” and unresolved.

The abandonment of public inquiries might have been more viable if accompanied by an admission that offers of immunity are meaningless now that the era of prosecution is effectively over. Nevertheless, instead of dispensing with public inquiries so readily, the Group should have canvassed opinions on the future role of judicial and inquiry processes from legally qualified people including the Attorney General, the DPP and the judiciary as well as client lobbies.

To be fair, Eames/Bradley were caught up in the distortions to the rule of law created by the peace process. They were hobbled by the refusal of the authorities to admit that the trial phase of the Troubles is over for paramilitaries associated with the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. This reluctance can only be seen as a sop to some of the victims’ lobbies. By falling short of recognising the fact of a de facto amnesty, Eames/Bradley launch their prize recommendation of the Legacy Commission on the shifting sands of evasion. Yet their whole approach suggests they realise the weakness of their position. A voluntary approach to truth telling is the main option left, when neither incentives nor sanctions exist any longer to make people tell the truth. Otherwise, the Report would hardly have dared conclude that “ the very demand for justice can militate against the main goal of reconciliation” and dismiss so casually the conventional view that justice should be done and be seen to be done. One cannot help feeling that Eames/Bradley know full well in their hearts that the era of trials for the Troubles is over but could not pluck up the courage to admit it and go on to explain why this is so.

With their considerable moral authority, Eames/Bradley should have mounted open hearings on this core subject of public inquiry during their consultation rather than throwing in the idea of the Legacy Commission without considered open debate. Cynics will say that the commission idea will be music to ministers’ ears. This will hardly endear it to many.

Although the investigatory and information-recovery stages of the Legacy Commission are to be carefully separated, attempts to run the two processes plus the thematic stage simultaneously still ring alarm bells. How can an investigator be sure that when he clears a case for disclosure to a family, that the deeds of say, the same IRA ASU will not crop up many years and many cases later? This problem would be obviated if the threat of prosecution, now purely formal, were finally lifted.

Disclosure issues

How much disclosure and in what forms? The Report is vague. The attempt to restrict the right to see certain documents to families only is no guarantee of security on the one hand and may unduly limit pubic interest disclosure on the other. Despite the efforts made to separate out legal investigation from story telling, there seem ample grounds for confusion and frustration. It would have been useful if the Report had produced from the HET a representative sample of story-telling, fictionalised if necessary.

The following is a remarkable piece of wishful thinking:

“But the Group does not see the outcome of the information recovery process or thematic examination as blaming or naming individuals. In the process of information recovery, the aim is to resolve unanswered questions. In thematic examination, the purpose is to look at overall accountability, not individual accountability; to identify areas where things went wrong and why they went wrong; to gain greater understanding; to encourage apology where appropriate; and to build a shared and reconciled future.”

Where do stories of the nutting squad fit in here? Or informers (inform-ants?) Living ones like Stakeknife or the dead like Denis Donaldson or William Stobie? Castlereagh interrogators? They would hardly be reconciling stories, but they could be part of resolution.

What level of access to the files will be given to the public and when? A 30-year or 15 year rule? A further delay for the most sensitive or a special regime? Or immediate release? Who decides and vet the papers? Eames/Bradley neglects to make specific recommendations for what will surely become the most important resource for resolving and assimilating the Troubles: painstaking research, followed by publication and peer review.

Conclusions

If they had widened and deepened the range of their inquiry to match their ambition and anticipate obvious criticisms, Eames/Bradley would have stood a better chance of retaining the initiative in public debate. They should have exploited their moral authority more, using it to pose fundamental questions, sometimes in public sessions.

 Politicians should have been bound into the process openly at the formative stage. On the idea of recognition payments for instance, they would have had to explain to their own public why they would deny payments to their own side’s victims, in order to deny them to their opponents ’ – which might be called cutting off their nose to spite their face. They would also have come under pressure to offer their own ideas rather than merely reacting negatively. As it is, the IRA and all other paramilitaries are taking shelter under the cover of the unionist rejection of recognition payments.

 Government, other pubic representatives, legal and police figures should have been examined on the whole range of the Consultation, but especially on the question of replacing judicial public inquiry by private story-telling. It is far from clear for instance, that all aspects of this proposal are human rights compliant. As government is detached from the process, it will be easier for them to kick it into the long grass.

 The question of general responsibility before the law should have been examined, as it relates to belief that the Report’s avowedly neutral approach as between public servants defending the State and those attacking it, in reality militates against State servants, where the trail of evidence is usually clearer than for paramilitaries. Do policemen and soldiers have the same or greater obligations under the law than civilians (who may be paramilitaries)? How well observed were the obligations of the State’s legal monopoly of the use of force?

 Actuarial and legal assessments might have been made on real need and anomalous treatment especially for victims or the 1970s and 80s, rather than plucking the idea of recognition payments out of the air - or rather from the Celtic Tiger in its glory days. These might have proved a less controversial alternative.

 Finally, a new theory of the State for the new Northern Ireland might have been devised and political parties invited to sign up to it. This could be founded on the propositions that the British and Irish identities are complementary rather than contradictory and that the principles of pluralism in the 1998, 2006, 2007 Northern Ireland Acts should be entrenched rather than grudgingly accepted. That would be the past’s best legacy: a contribution to reworking their basic constitution by the Northern Ireland people themselves.

…ends

]]> Comment on Information Recovery and the Processes of Investigation by Brian Walker http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=50&cpage=1#comment-23 Brian Walker Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:32:27 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=50#comment-23 Disclosure doubts How much disclosure and in what forms? The Report is vague. The attempt to restrict the right to see certain documents to families only is no guarantee of security on the one hand and may unduly limit pubic interest disclosure on the other. Despite the efforts made to separate out legal investigation from story telling, there seem ample grounds for confusion and frustration. It would have been useful if the Report had produced from the HET a representative sample of story-telling, fictionalised if necessary. The following is a remarkable piece of wishful thinking: “But the Group does not see the outcome of the information recovery process or thematic examination as blaming or naming individuals. In the process of information recovery, the aim is to resolve unanswered questions. In thematic examination, the purpose is to look at overall accountability, not individual accountability; to identify areas where things went wrong and why they went wrong; to gain greater understanding; to encourage apology where appropriate; and to build a shared and reconciled future.” Where do stories of the nutting squad fit in here? Or informers (inform-ants?)? Living ones like Stakeknife or the dead like Denis Donaldson or William Stobie? Castlereagh interrogators? They would hardly be reconciling stories, but they could be part of resolution. What level of access to the files will be given to the public and when? A 30-year or 15 year rule? A further delay for the most sensitive or a special regime? Or immediate release? Who decides and vet the papers? Eames/Bradley neglects to make specific recommendations for what will surely become the most important resource for resolving and assimilating the Troubles: painstaking research, followed by publication and peer review. Disclosure doubts

How much disclosure and in what forms? The Report is vague. The attempt to restrict the right to see certain documents to families only is no guarantee of security on the one hand and may unduly limit pubic interest disclosure on the other. Despite the efforts made to separate out legal investigation from story telling, there seem ample grounds for confusion and frustration. It would have been useful if the Report had produced from the HET a representative sample of story-telling, fictionalised if necessary.

The following is a remarkable piece of wishful thinking:

“But the Group does not see the outcome of the information recovery process or thematic examination as blaming or naming individuals. In the process of information recovery, the aim is to resolve unanswered questions. In thematic examination, the purpose is to look at overall accountability, not individual accountability; to identify areas where things went wrong and why they went wrong; to gain greater understanding; to encourage apology where appropriate; and to build a shared and reconciled future.”

Where do stories of the nutting squad fit in here? Or informers (inform-ants?)? Living ones like Stakeknife or the dead like Denis Donaldson or William Stobie? Castlereagh interrogators? They would hardly be reconciling stories, but they could be part of resolution.

What level of access to the files will be given to the public and when? A 30-year or 15 year rule? A further delay for the most sensitive or a special regime? Or immediate release? Who decides and vet the papers? Eames/Bradley neglects to make specific recommendations for what will surely become the most important resource for resolving and assimilating the Troubles: painstaking research, followed by publication and peer review.

]]> Comment on Public Inquiries by Brian Walker http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=68&cpage=1#comment-22 Brian Walker Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:26:01 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=68#comment-22 Legal Processes – or not Eames/Bradley does little to increase public confidence in the judicial system, surely a necessary part of a resolving society. The proposal to rely on the legacy commission and dispense with further public inquiries will certainly fail to reconcile many families or allay wider scepticism and suspicion. The statement on this is breathtakingly presumptuous: “The Group has.... favoured a mechanism which would be private, non-judicial and non-adversarial in preference to the public, judicial or quasi-judicial commissions of other countries.” What will happen to the mountain of collusion evidence in the Stevens reports over say, the Finucane murder if the Finucane family decline to cooperate with the legacy commission? Is the public interest in collusion to remain subject to their wishes and that of those like them? The Report is silent on this; for this is not “nice” story telling, it is “nasty” and unresolved. The abandonment of public inquiries might have been more viable if accompanied by an admission that offers of immunity are meaningless now that the era of prosecution is effectively over. Nevertheless, instead of dispensing with public inquiries so readily, the Group should have canvassed opinions on the future role of judicial and inquiry processes from legally qualified people including the Attorney General, the DPP and the judiciary as well as client lobbies. To be fair, Eames/Bradley were caught up in the distortions to the rule of law created by the peace process. They were hobbled by the refusal of the authorities to admit that the trial phase of the Troubles is over for paramilitaries associated with the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. This reluctance can only be seen as a sop to some of the victims’ lobbies. By falling short of recognising the fact of a de facto amnesty, Eames/Bradley launch their prize recommendation of the Legacy Commission on the shifting sands of evasion. Yet their whole approach suggests they realise the weakness of their position. A voluntary approach to truth telling is the main option left, when neither incentives nor sanctions exist any longer to make people tell the truth. Otherwise, the Report would hardly have dared conclude that “ the very demand for justice can militate against the main goal of reconciliation” and dismiss so casually the conventional view that justice should be done and be seen to be done. One cannot help feeling that Eames/Bradley know full well in their hearts that the era of trials for the Troubles is over but could not pluck up the courage to admit it and go on to explain why this is so. With their considerable moral authority, Eames/Bradley should have mounted open hearings on this core subject of public inquiry during their consultation rather than throwing in the idea of the Legacy Commission without considered open debate. Cynics will say that the commission idea will be music to ministers’ ears. This will hardly endear it to many. Although the investigatory and information-recovery stages of the Legacy Commission are to be carefully separated, attempts to run the two processes plus the thematic stage simultaneously still ring alarm bells. How can an investigator be sure that when he clears a case for disclosure to a family, that the deeds of say, the same IRA ASU will not crop up many years and many cases later? This problem would be obviated if the threat of prosecution, now purely formal, were finally lifted. Legal Processes – or not

Eames/Bradley does little to increase public confidence in the judicial system, surely a necessary part of a resolving society. The proposal to rely on the legacy commission and dispense with further public inquiries will certainly fail to reconcile many families or allay wider scepticism and suspicion. The statement on this is breathtakingly presumptuous: “The Group has…. favoured a mechanism which would be private, non-judicial and non-adversarial in preference to the public, judicial or quasi-judicial commissions of other countries.”

What will happen to the mountain of collusion evidence in the Stevens reports over say, the Finucane murder if the Finucane family decline to cooperate with the legacy commission? Is the public interest in collusion to remain subject to their wishes and that of those like them? The Report is silent on this; for this is not “nice” story telling, it is “nasty” and unresolved.

The abandonment of public inquiries might have been more viable if accompanied by an admission that offers of immunity are meaningless now that the era of prosecution is effectively over. Nevertheless, instead of dispensing with public inquiries so readily, the Group should have canvassed opinions on the future role of judicial and inquiry processes from legally qualified people including the Attorney General, the DPP and the judiciary as well as client lobbies.

To be fair, Eames/Bradley were caught up in the distortions to the rule of law created by the peace process. They were hobbled by the refusal of the authorities to admit that the trial phase of the Troubles is over for paramilitaries associated with the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. This reluctance can only be seen as a sop to some of the victims’ lobbies. By falling short of recognising the fact of a de facto amnesty, Eames/Bradley launch their prize recommendation of the Legacy Commission on the shifting sands of evasion. Yet their whole approach suggests they realise the weakness of their position. A voluntary approach to truth telling is the main option left, when neither incentives nor sanctions exist any longer to make people tell the truth. Otherwise, the Report would hardly have dared conclude that “ the very demand for justice can militate against the main goal of reconciliation” and dismiss so casually the conventional view that justice should be done and be seen to be done. One cannot help feeling that Eames/Bradley know full well in their hearts that the era of trials for the Troubles is over but could not pluck up the courage to admit it and go on to explain why this is so.

With their considerable moral authority, Eames/Bradley should have mounted open hearings on this core subject of public inquiry during their consultation rather than throwing in the idea of the Legacy Commission without considered open debate. Cynics will say that the commission idea will be music to ministers’ ears. This will hardly endear it to many.

Although the investigatory and information-recovery stages of the Legacy Commission are to be carefully separated, attempts to run the two processes plus the thematic stage simultaneously still ring alarm bells. How can an investigator be sure that when he clears a case for disclosure to a family, that the deeds of say, the same IRA ASU will not crop up many years and many cases later? This problem would be obviated if the threat of prosecution, now purely formal, were finally lifted.

]]> Comment on The Group’s Guiding Principles by Brian Walker http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=127&cpage=1#comment-21 Brian Walker Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:21:08 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=127#comment-21 The road map “We hold these truths to be self evident” might have adopted as the motto of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Report on the Past as well as for the preamble to the US Constitution, but with far less justification.  The report’s “road map” identifies reconciliation and a shared future as the desired destination but without much sense of direction for getting there.  The report writers assume a basic moral consensus which does not yet exist.  They hanker after a soft landing from the Troubles and play down the need to learn hard lessons.  They concentrate overmuch on the testimony of victims and survivors, in the apparent belief that if that category can be satisfied, the rest of us will follow.  Preferring to treat the information recovery as a private exercise for relatives, they lack any clear concept of the wider public interest. Their moralistic approach bristles with fallacies, question-begging and assumed answers without analysis. “Resolution “ would have been a better goal than “ reconciliation.” Contrary to their most cherished assumptions, truth telling is not necessarily reconciling; it contains many terrible messages and the results are bound to be unpredictable. Giving closure to some victims and survivors in unlikely to reconcile highly politicised audiences. While a sensitive-seeming approach, private story telling may be a means of learning truth but may also leave lies unchallenged and perpetuate a denial of justice. Rather shockingly, there are Orwellian hints at anaesthetising evidence in order to effect reconciliation. By concentrating on the bereaved and the injured and acting almost like psychotherapists, they ended up with the paradox of a bland analysis leading to controversial conclusions. Eames/Bradley’s most important achievement could have been to convince the ideal “reasonable person” of their way ahead but alas, they did not succeed. The deafening silence following the initial flood of predictable criticism is testimony to that. The road map

“We hold these truths to be self evident” might have adopted as the motto of the Eames/Bradley Consultative Report on the Past as well as for the preamble to the US Constitution, but with far less justification.

 The report’s “road map” identifies reconciliation and a shared future as the desired destination but without much sense of direction for getting there.

 The report writers assume a basic moral consensus which does not yet exist.

 They hanker after a soft landing from the Troubles and play down the need to learn hard lessons.

 They concentrate overmuch on the testimony of victims and survivors, in the apparent belief that if that category can be satisfied, the rest of us will follow.

 Preferring to treat the information recovery as a private exercise for relatives, they lack any clear concept of the wider public interest.

Their moralistic approach bristles with fallacies, question-begging and assumed answers without analysis. “Resolution “ would have been a better goal than
“ reconciliation.”

Contrary to their most cherished assumptions, truth telling is not necessarily reconciling; it contains many terrible messages and the results are bound to be unpredictable. Giving closure to some victims and survivors in unlikely to reconcile highly politicised audiences. While a sensitive-seeming approach, private story telling may be a means of learning truth but may also leave lies unchallenged and perpetuate a denial of justice. Rather shockingly, there are Orwellian hints at anaesthetising evidence in order to effect reconciliation. By concentrating on the bereaved and the injured and acting almost like psychotherapists, they ended up with the paradox of a bland analysis leading to controversial conclusions. Eames/Bradley’s most important achievement could have been to convince the ideal “reasonable person” of their way ahead but alas, they did not succeed. The deafening silence following the initial flood of predictable criticism is testimony to that.

]]> Comment on Compensation by sam robinson http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=87&cpage=1#comment-14 sam robinson Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:06:43 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=87#comment-14 The proposed compensation figure in line with a figure drawn up in the Republic of Irreland, is a shambolic nonsense, and Robin Eames in particular should hang his head in shame, at the fact that he is agreeing with the Republic of Ireland's government in anything to do with the Good Friday/Peace Agreement, or whatever it was called, as those who murdered many of his parishioners were freed under terms of the Agreement. Yet the ROI Government refused to free the assassins of Garda McCabe, which surely is double standards. The proposed compensation figure in line with a figure drawn up in the Republic of Irreland, is a shambolic nonsense, and Robin Eames in particular should hang his head in shame, at the fact that he is agreeing with the Republic of Ireland’s government in anything to do with the Good Friday/Peace Agreement, or whatever it was called, as those who murdered many of his parishioners were freed under terms of the Agreement. Yet the ROI Government refused to free the assassins of Garda McCabe, which surely is double standards.

]]> Comment on Summary of the main recommendations by Jonathan McCullough http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=16&cpage=1#comment-11 Jonathan McCullough Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:12:28 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=16#comment-11 It is absolutely ridiculous, abhorrent and sickening that members of illegal paramilitary organisations should be seen in the same light as their victims. Surely the right way, going forward, is to say that this payment should only be made to families of those killed whilst not carrying out illegal activity. Therefore the family of a police officer , soldier or paramiltary member would not recieve recompense if that family member was committing an illegal act when killed. I have no problem with giving compensation to the family of someone killed if it later transpires that they were a member of an illegal organisation, however, if killed whilst committing a crime it is truly abhorrent that they should be viewed similarly to innocent victims of their crimes. It is absolutely ridiculous, abhorrent and sickening that members of illegal paramilitary organisations should be seen in the same light as their victims.
Surely the right way, going forward, is to say that this payment should only be made to families of those killed whilst not carrying out illegal activity. Therefore the family of a police officer , soldier or paramiltary member would not recieve recompense if that family member was committing an illegal act when killed. I have no problem with giving compensation to the family of someone killed if it later transpires that they were a member of an illegal organisation, however, if killed whilst committing a crime it is truly abhorrent that they should be viewed similarly to innocent victims of their crimes.

]]> Comment on Summary of the main recommendations by Dewi http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=16&cpage=1#comment-10 Dewi Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:23:24 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=16#comment-10 Maybe the recommendations on the Society issues stuff are a little all encompassing. Rather than: 1) "addressing sectarianism", 2)"ensuring an even spread of economic benefits", 3)"engage...with. Churches to review and rethink their contribution to a non-sectarian future.....particularly in the area of education" How about: 1) Establish and fund well a secular youth activities movement. 2) I'm not sure such an observation is appropriate without a grat deal more elaboration. 3) Instigate compulsory secular education for all pupils. Maybe the recommendations on the Society issues stuff are a little all encompassing. Rather than:
1) “addressing sectarianism”,
2)”ensuring an even spread of economic benefits”,
3)”engage…with. Churches to review and rethink their contribution to a non-sectarian future…..particularly in the area of education” How about:

1) Establish and fund well a secular youth activities movement.
2) I’m not sure such an observation is appropriate without a grat deal more elaboration.
3) Instigate compulsory secular education for all pupils.

]]> Comment on Services and funding by John Harper http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=82&cpage=1#comment-9 John Harper Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:58:57 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=82#comment-9 Eames and Bradley must be commended for undertaking this massive task,they will not satisfy everyone,hurt still runs deep,as in many cases state collussion,and downright murder,was involved in many killings.I agree no matter whom or what group murdered a loved one,unanswered questions surrounding their deaths should be addressed.M y father in law was murdered along with my cousin and nine other innocent people on august the 9th 1971,a father of 12,nothing will satisfy my inlaws other than the truth,and an apology from the British state,if people cannot see the difference between state killing and those of other armed groups,then thats sad.As for £12,000 per family well most families that lost a love one in the Ballymurphy massacre come from large families,they have never received a penny for the loss of their loved ones,and have never sought monetary compensation,they demand an international inquiry so that the truth of what happened in august 1971 will be revealed and closure then can proceed.Money can buy silence but cannot buy the truth. Eames and Bradley must be commended for undertaking this massive task,they will not satisfy everyone,hurt still runs deep,as in many cases state collussion,and downright murder,was involved in many killings.I agree no matter whom or what group murdered a loved one,unanswered questions surrounding their deaths should be addressed.M y father in law was murdered along with my cousin and nine other innocent people on august the 9th 1971,a father of 12,nothing will satisfy my inlaws other than the truth,and an apology from the British state,if people cannot see the difference between state killing and those of other armed groups,then thats sad.As for £12,000 per family well most families that lost a love one in the Ballymurphy massacre come from large families,they have never received a penny for the loss of their loved ones,and have never sought monetary compensation,they demand an international inquiry so that the truth of what happened in august 1971 will be revealed and closure then can proceed.Money can buy silence but cannot buy the truth.

]]> Comment on The Group’s Guiding Principles by Seamus Graham http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=127&cpage=1#comment-7 Seamus Graham Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:42:43 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=127#comment-7 The past should be dealt with in a manner which enables society to become more defined by its desire for true and lasting reconciliation, rather than by division and mistrust, seeking to promote a shared and reconciled future for all. The problem is there is no desire in society for true & lasting reconciliation. The past should be dealt with in a manner which enables society to become more defined by its desire for true and lasting reconciliation, rather than by division and mistrust, seeking to promote a shared and reconciled future for all.

The problem is there is no desire in society for true & lasting reconciliation.

]]> Comment on Services and funding by ciaran maceoin http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=82&cpage=1#comment-6 ciaran maceoin Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:40:54 +0000 http://www.consultationonthepast.org/?p=82#comment-6 I believe the recognition payments are a good idea, and the goverment should go ahead with this plan it should then be up to the familiess themselves whether to accept them or not. I think this whole report has been hijacked by politicians for their own dubious objectives the actual families have had no say on the matter. The majority of families are not members of these family groups so these groups do not speak on behalf of the majority of the families.I believe that the goverment should issue these payments then if a family do not wish to recieve them they can return them. I have spoken to several familiess who have lost loved ones and they have told me they would be happy to accept these payments. This would never lessen the hurt they feel over their lost ones. But if this matter is left to fester it could reopen old woulds which we had hoped to have left behind us. As for the goverment this may be unacceptable to some sections of our community but this never stopped them from making unpopular actions in the past ie the release of prisoners. I believe the recognition payments are a good idea, and the goverment should go ahead with this plan it should then be up to the familiess themselves whether to accept them or not.

I think this whole report has been hijacked by politicians for their own dubious objectives the actual families have had no say on the matter.

The majority of families are not members of these family groups so these groups do not speak on behalf of the majority of the families.I believe that the goverment should issue these payments then if a family do not wish to recieve them they can return them.

I have spoken to several familiess who have lost loved ones and they have told me they would be happy to accept these payments. This would never lessen the hurt they feel over their lost ones. But if this matter is left to fester it could reopen old woulds which we had hoped to have left behind us.

As for the goverment this may be unacceptable to some sections of our community but this never stopped them from making unpopular actions in the past ie the release of prisoners.

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