Combating Impunity

“Impunity” is the term used for a systemic failure to hold people, especially state agents, accountable for human rights violations. It is hugely destructive of the rule of law and erodes faith in the justice system and state institutions in general.

The longer it goes on, the more it poisons contemporary society, even when it relates to crimes of the past. A failure to hold a state to account for patterns of past human rights violations, fuels the risk that they will be repeated at home or abroad when similar circumstances arise. This is why impunity is a prime target of human rights activists throughout the world.

Latest press releases and publications

May

Representatives of three NI NGOs to address the UN on the UK’s record on torture

02/05/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticeNews, Press releases

Next week representatives of three local NGOs will be travelling to Geneva to address members of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) regarding the UK’s compliance with its international obligations on the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. Andrée Murphy and Irati Aiesta from Relatives for Justice, Gemma McKeown from the Committee...

Mar

Submission to the UN Committee Against Torture on the UK’s Sixth Periodic Report on compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

21/03/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticePublications, Submissions

The UK is currently undergoing the sixth periodic review of its compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which it ratified in 1988. All states signed up to the treaty have a duty to prevent and investigate torture, support victims of torture, and ensure perpetrators are...

Mar

Committee of Ministers decision – international community asks UK to provide timeframe on introducing Stormont House Agreement legacy legislation into Westminster

15/03/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticeNews, Press releases

The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has published its latest decisions in relation to the scrutiny of the ‘cases concerning the actions of the security forces in Northern Ireland’, otherwise known as the McKerr group of cases. This follows on from a meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies, which took place in Strasburg earlier this...

Feb

Statement from CAJ on the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Pat Finucane

27/02/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticeNews, Press releases

CAJ is pleased with the unanimous decision of the UK Supreme Court to uphold the appeal taken by Geraldine Finucane in relation to the murder of her husband Pat Finucane. Pat Finucane was murdered on 12 February 1989 and although David Cameron admitted in 2012 that there were ‘shocking levels of collusion’ in this murder...

Feb

Submission to the Committee of Ministers in relation to the supervision of cases concerning the action of the security forces in Northern Ireland (Feb 2019)

20/02/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticePublications, Submissions

The Committee of Ministers is the decision-making body of Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe. Between 12 to 14 March, the 1340th (Human Rights) meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies will take place. This session will look at the execution of judgements made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in a...

Feb

Press statement re. Police Ombudsman’s reports being held up by PSNI failure to disclose information

14/02/2019Committee on the Administration of JusticeNews, Press releases

The Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI) has said that a number of his reports into past killings, which may have involved collusion, will be delayed because of police failure to disclose information. CAJ understands that new information on the activities of Loyalist murder squads has come to light. The PSNI claims that ‘human error’...

Dec

CAJ Annual Report 2018

10/12/2018Committee on the Administration of JusticeAnnual Reports, Publications, Reports

CAJ highlights another year spent promoting justice and protecting rights in our Annual Report 2018. It’s been an eventful twelve months for the CAJ team, not least because of the human rights implications of the UK’s impending exit from the EU. Introduction to the report: People in Northern Ireland are sometimes accused, not always unjustly,...

Aug

Open letter to General Sir Nick Carter

03/08/2018Committee on the Administration of JusticeNews

CAJ has written an open letter to the UK’s new Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, in response to his remarkable statement that former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland will not be chased by people making “vexatious claims” on his watch. He also said he “would absolutely stamp on any of...

Mar