24 Apr KRW LAW Statement On Legacy Litigation And PSNI Budget
We act on behalf of many conflict bereaved and survivors.
We refer to the recent representation made by the Chief Constable at the recent NI Affairs Committee on the cost of legacy cases to the PSNI and its annual budget.
We welcome Jon Boutcher’s reaffirmation about the attritional approach by all security agencies around information disclosure “ and the need to address this resource sapping State approach to legacy. That important concession helps provide much needed context for the cost incurred in litigating cases on behalf of Troubles- related next of kin many of whom have been waiting for years to get some sort of closure.
It nails down exactly why there has been an exponential increase in court costs and in turn highlights the need for an overhaul of the currently outdated resourcing arrangements.
Families will be rightly alarmed and concerned over the concession that PSNI don’t currently have sufficient resources to meet potential future court settlements and damages payments. That is completely unacceptable. There needs to be a root and branch examination of the precise reasons why resourcing of legacy litigation continues to be met by the current PSNI policing budget. Some families have queried whether this has been deliberate in order to create excuses for the ongoing delays in judicial resolution.
We are faced with a litany of vexatious and equally “attritional” motions and summonses to strike out court cases which makes our job extremely challenging. One specific example was the attempt to knock out the civil actions pursued by the Dublin- Monaghan Bombing bereaved and injured. In a 92-page seminal ruling last year the High court threw out an application to strike out the claim. The disputed Summons took years to navigate its way through the court which came as a State driven riposte to a successful application for discovery of documents against the PSNI and MOD. The negative out workings of this draconian defence only served to delay the case meaning people like bomb blast survivor Derek Byrne, who attended Belfast high court in his wheelchair days before he died, never got to the end of his legal battle. Not only that but the entire process added an oppressively substantial 6 figure sum to the costs in the case. In fairness to the Chief Constable, he was in contact with us in the immediate aftermath of the high court judgement to express his ongoing support for our case.
To that end we have been in regular communication with the chief Constable since he took office to endorse finding a far more collaborative approach to Conflict litigation. We have had recent engagement only a matter of three weeks ago urging an immediate intervention to resolve a long running High court action on behalf of a victim of the Glenanne Gang who is sadly life limited. We made our plea on the back of the very positive commentary by Sir Iain Livingstone and the chief Constable on their views about alleged collusion with the security forces. Equally we implored urgent remedial action right now given the untimely passing of three other Glenanne linked bereaved and injured clients, James Hughes; Adrian Mullan and John McNeice, none of whom lived to see out their cases.
The current logistical inflexibility permeating the States defence to these and hundreds of other similarly themed cases is not only serving to drive up costs but also serving to time out many people from ever seeing their cases through to a satisfactory conclusion.
We now endorse the call for an immediate separation out of the current legacy funding reserves from the general PSNI policing budget. We also echo the words of the chief Constable and look forward to upscaling our collective engagement to chart a less labour-intensive litigation management structure. The ultimate beneficiaries of that process will be all the 100s of families waiting patiently and loyally to get some measure of closure on their extant litigation.
Kevin Winters
KRW Law