PTA Ruling
01 May 1993
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled by 22 votes to 4 that the UK government's derogation from the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is valid because, as allowed for under article 15, the "life of the nation" is threatened by the conflict over the national status of the North of Ireland. Britain derogated from the European Convention as long ago as 1957 with respect to Northern Ireland. This was withdrawn in 1984 and, as a result, Northern Ireland was no longer officially designated under the international instruments as a territory where "a public emergency threatening the life of the nation" exists. But after the Brogan case concerning seven-day detention in 1988, a further derogation was entered which left the question of whether Britain was justified in doing this with reference to the circumstances pertaining in Northern Ireland at the present time.
This latest case involved a judgement as to whether those circumstances were such that the seven day detention power -particularly the failure to subject the detention to judicial scrutiny "promptly" as required by the Convention - was strictly necessary. Peter Brannigan and Patrick McBride had been arrested under the PTA in January 1989 and the Home Secretary had granted extensions of their detention. They complained to the Court that they had not been brought promptly before a judge. But the Court decided in favour of the government that the independence of the judiciary would be compromised if they were seen to be involved in the granting of extensions of detention.
McBride did not live to hear the Court's verdict. He was one of three people killed when RUC officer Allen Moore talked his way into the Sinn Fein centre on the Falls Road, seeking an interview with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. The inquest into these deaths was held in May and was one of the largest on record, involving the calling of 97 witnesses. It was revealed at the inquest that Moore, who had shot and killed himself a few hours after the three murders, had bomb-making materials in his car and his bedroom. These consisted of copper piping, firework gunpowder, flash cubes and shotgun cartridges. Small devices of this nature, suitable for parcel bombs, had been sent to a number of nationalists in autumn 1991. The revelation added weight to the claim made by the Andersonstown News at the time of the killings (4 February 1992) that someone who said they were in the RUC phoned their offices about two hours afterwards. The caller gave precise details of Moore's movements in the hours leading up to the killings. He said Moore had fired shots over the grave of a fellow RUC officer, Norman Spratt, the night before and that both men were members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters. The contents of Moore's suicide note were not revealed at the inquest and the RUC have failed to publish their own inquiry into the affair. The day of the killings, Moore was due to be part of the guard protecting President Robinson on her visit to Belfast.