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Pat Finucane: justice denied?

Jon Robins questions the government’s decision to rule out a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Finucane

f ever there was an ‘activist lawyer’ shoot-to-kill policy and, for Sinn Fein, in Brian Nelson who was an agent controlled (to use a 2020 neologism) it was Pat a test case challenging the legality of the by a top secret section of the British Army. Finucane. At the end of last year home secretary’s decision to ban interviews. In 1989 Douglas Hogg, then junior home INorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon His best known client was the hunger office minister, told the House of Commons Lewis ruled out a public inquiry into state striker Bobby Sands. At the time he was that there were solicitors in Northern collusion in the murder of the human rights murdered he had two cases on the way to Ireland who were ‘unduly sympathetic to solicitor in 1989. the European Court of Human Rights. the cause of the IRA’. Later that day, the Born into a republican family from the When I first interviewed Michael SDLP’s Seamus Mallon immediately replied Falls Road in Belfast, Pat Finucane was Finucane, the then commissioner of the that he had no doubt that there were fully committed to the idea that everyone Metropolitan police, Sir John Stevens lawyers ‘walking the streets or driving on in his divided community deserved proper had published a damning report into his the roads of the north of Ireland who have independent legal representation. The father’s killing which found ‘overwhelming’ become targets for assassins’ bullets as a solicitor was as comfortable representing evidence of state complicity in his father’s result of the statement that has been made loyalist rioters hit by stray plastic bullets as death. The family wanted nothing to do tonight’. their republican adversaries. As his widow, with that report (or two previous reports) Days later Pat Finucane was dead. When Geraldine, once put it: ‘Pat would have because they were holding out for a full I spoke to Michael Finucane, he recalled represented the people who shot him.’ public inquiry. Since then there have been Hogg’s words and likened them to ‘a verbal Pat Finucane was shot 14 times in front reports by retired Canadian judge (Peter hand grenade lobbed into the cauldron of of his wife and three children by loyalist Cory) in 2005 and the former UN war Northern Ireland’. gunmen who forced their way into his crimes prosecutor Sir Desmond De Silva Last year was characterised by political home. ‘One of the first times I saw my Dad seven years later which concluded that the lawyer-bashing led by Home Secretary Priti on telly, he was being interviewed on the state ‘actively furthered and facilitated’ the Patel denouncing practitioners variously Six O’Clock News acting for the hunger killing of Pat Finucane and that there had as ‘activist’, ‘lefty’ or ‘do-gooders’. A few strikers,’ Pat’s son Michael Finucane told been ‘a relentless attempt to defeat the ends months ago, the Metropolitan police’s me back in 2003. ‘It was one of the first of justice’ by government forces. counter-terrorism unit had to be brought in occasions in Northern Ireland’s history Brandon Lewis last month said it was to investigate an alleged far-right extremist where there was a lawyer talking about ‘plain that the levels of collusion’ were who had arrived at the offices of one of the human rights and saying that these men ‘totally unacceptable’; but still no public largest immigration firms, Duncan Lewis, have inherent dignities that were being inquiry. In a 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court with a knife, handcuffs, a Nazi flag and a US denied them.’ Seventeen years old at the concluded that the original investigation Confederate flag. time of his father’s death, Michael is now a was ineffective and failed to meet human Sadly, this is a government that has solicitor specialising in human rights and rights standards because Sir Desmond little time for the views of the Supreme a member of the Irish Human Rights and had been unable to question witnesses. Court, ‘activist’ lawyers or indeed the rule Equality Commission. However, the court acknowledged it of law. It should pay heed to the lessons could not order a public inquiry lest it of Pat Finucane’s brutal slaying; instead it First of a generation overstep its judicial independence from is prepared to sweep his death under the Pat Finucane was among the first of a the government. Geraldine Finucane said carpet. NLJ generation of working class Catholics to that ministers ‘remain in breach of their take advantage of the opportunities of free international legal obligations: a shameful Dr Jon Robins is an NLJ columnist, editor of education introduced in 1968. He set up the and inexcusable position for a sovereign The Justice Gap & visiting lecturer at Middlesex law firm Madden & Finucane in Belfast with government to take.’ University and Winchester University. Jon is the Peter Madden in 1979. The two lawyers author of Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The crisis were caricatured as ‘provos in suits’. Top secret in our justice system (Biteback, 2018) and The Finucane specialised in cases arising Pat Finucane’s killers were volunteers First Miscarriage of Justice: The “Amazing and out of the emergency powers legislation, allied with the Ulster Defence Association Unreported” Case of Tony Stock (Waterside acting for clients caught up in the alleged whose deadly activities were directed by Press, 2014).