Legal Avenues for Redress for Serious Injuries: Briefing for the Victims' Forum

The Victims’ Forum requested a follow up on an earlier presentation in February 2015 to focus on the legality of the failure of the state to provide sufficient reparations to injured victims and any possible avenues for litigation. This briefing sets out some examples and opportunities in developing a litigation strategy on claiming adequate remedies for those injured during the Troubles/conflict in and around Northern Ireland. As a disclaimer there are no sure things in civil litigation in seeking redress and there are many hurdles to overcome. This briefing speculates at some possible avenues of redress, it is not legally authoritative and should not be relied on as such. Civil litigation in certain circumstances could be possible, if new information comes to light and domestic proceedings can be instigated. However, it should be noted that civil litigation only allows successful individual claimants to benefit from any compensation award, not all victims. As such a case will individualise any sort of award, if any, made, and will take years in litigation if there is not a positive finding for claimant in domestic courts.

This brief begins by setting out some legal avenues through using private civil law to litigate on before moving onto using the European Convention of Human Rights as a basis for a claim. There are some legal avenues available through mainly Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, but there may be others in terms of adequate remedy under Article 13 and the right to fair trial under Article 6.