An agreement between Dublin and London on Troubles’ legacy cases must fully honour the European Convention on Human Rights, Tánaiste Simon Harris will say on Friday.
Mr Harris’s pointed words, to be given in a speech in Oxford, will counter growing opposition in the UK to the 75-year-old convention and calls for the United Kingdom to quit it.
Strongly defending the ECHR, Mr Harris will say it is a fundamental safeguard in the Belfast Agreement.
“It is a core part of the delicate balances in that agreement. It reflects Ireland and the UK’s shared status as founder members of one of the key parts of the European legal and political architecture that emerged from the shadow of the second World War: the Council of Europe.
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“The ECHR’s guarantees cannot be negotiated away, despite what some politicians might claim. Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious: protecting fundamental rights protects everyone,” Mr Harris will say.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs is due on Friday evening to address the British-Irish Association, which is attended by senior politicians, officials, community leaders, journalists and others, when it meets in Oxford.
An agreement on how to handle legacy cases is “close” but will require political courage to “get it over the line”, Mr Harris will tell the association.
Such a deal must promote reconciliation, uphold the rule of law, address victims and survivors’ concerns and be “balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable”.
The need for a so-called framework legacy agreement between Dublin and London was agreed a year ago when both sides agreed that legacy legislation left by the Conservatives was not fit for purpose.
“There would be a neat symmetry in coming to you today to say that, one year on, we have a final agreement on a new framework to address legacy issues.
“Unfortunately, life – and politics – is not quite that neat,” he will say, but he will echoNorthern Ireland Secretary of State, Hilary Benn’s declaration that an agreement is close.
The two governments will later this month finally appoint an independent expert to report within 12 months on whether there is merit in setting up a process to finally dismantle loyalist paramilitaries.
“We need to explore every credible avenue – so that the over 20 per cent of Northern Ireland’s population that report that paramilitaries exert control in the areas that they live can begin to live their lives without the intimidation, fear, coercive control and violence that they experience on a day-to-day basis,” Mr Harris will tell the British-Irish Association.
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Saying he could not even begin to predict the likely recommendations, Mr Harris will say: “What I do know, though, is that Northern Ireland has lived with the scourge of paramilitarism for far too long.”
