The Gazette 1972

which there is no appeal, and the Convention provides that if there has been a violation and under British law only partial reparation can be made, "the decision of the court shall if necessary afford just satisfaction to the injured party". On the other hand, if the Irish Government does not decide within three months after the report is in its hands to go to the Court, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe must decide by a two-thirds majority whether the Convention has been violated and, if so, within what period Britain must act to remedy the grounds of complaint. It is only if satisfactory action is not taken that the facts are made public by the publication of the report. As the Commission stresses, the procedure is designed at all stages to try to con- ciliate and not to condemn. The Irish case argued last week was based on four objectives laid out in the initial submissions. These were to ensure that the British Government secured for everyone in the North the basic rights and freedoms under the convention of life and liberty and particular rights described in various articles of the Convention; to bring breaches of certain articles to the attention of the Commission; to determine how far some of the legislation and administrative practices in the North were compatible with the Convention and to ensure that Britain observed the engagements undertaken by One possible step now could be pressure by the Irish Government on the British to drop all practices which could be described as brutal or as torture. There is a possibility that if the Irish Government was fully con- vinced that such practices had indeed ceased then it would consider some form of withdrawal. On the torture charges, however, the Irish case was on firmer ground. The position was strengthened by the evidence of a leading Dutch psychiatrist on the effects of torture and more than 100 individual cases were also entered in the evidence. The British reply that domestic remedies were available to people alleging that they had been tortured was countered on the ground that, effec- tively, no domestic remedy is adequate. The conse- quences of torture from a psychological point of view cannot be determined precisely in money terms in the way that physical damage in a road accident, for example, can be assessed. And this argument was pre- sented together with the contention that after the Compton and Parker reports, it could be sustained that an administrative practice of torture involving hooding, wall-standing, lack of food and sleep, and noise, had existed and that even if it had stopped, as the British contended, this needed to be proved. Under the heading of discrimination, the Govern- ment's arguments were restricted to claiming that acti- vities by British troops, such as house-searching, were conducted in a politically discriminatory fashion but no allegations were made of religious discrimination. The British reply essentially was that discrimination under the Special Powers Act (by, for example, troops regularly searching one man's house) had a remedy in the possibility of asking the High Court for an Order showing mala fides. This, the Irish representatives argued, was virtually impossible to do in practice. Irish Times (2nd October 1972) signing the Convention. Vindication of Irish case

While the outcome of the hearings which lasted all of last week has been obviously very satisfactory to the Government, the Commission in announcing it under- lined that admission of the application in no way pre- judged its opinion as to whether or not the complaints concerned violated the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Of the seven charges, two are not to be taken any further. One of them, relating to the Northern Ireland Act, 1972, involved retrospective legislation, but the British Government pointed out that no offences would be prosecuted under it which occurred before the Act was passed, and so the Irish Government withdrew the charge. The Commission also found that the Government had not made out a case proving that the killing by British troops in the North at various dates last year and on Bloody Sunday in Derry last January, were the result of "administrative practice", and did not admit the charge. The most important finding of the Commission, how- ever, admitting part of the Irish application, is the one relating to the Special Powers Act which has never before been challenged in an international setting, lar- gely because of the British Government's derogation from the Convention. However, the Irish case resting on Article 15, contended that this derogation only had effect "to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation", and the Commission concluded that this could only be decided by examining the merits. To this extent, the Special Powers Act and, more precisely, the internment without trial and detention, are to be investigated. The investigatory stage will also include examination of the Government's charges involving interrogation methods, and discrimination on political grounds. For the first time, too, the Commission has atcepted a sub- mission that charges should be investigated accusing the British Government of failing to "secure" the rights and freedom of people in the North, a decision which extends the application of the Convention on Human Rights as it deals with broad responsibility of Govern- ments rather than particular responsibility. The Procedure Under the procedure of the European Commission, Ireland would now have to prepare a submission on the merits of the case within two months of hearing the full judgment of the Commission—which is not expected to be ready for a month or two—following which Britain will have two months to prepare its reply. A group of Commissioners will then visit Ireland to take depositions and try to effect a friendly settlement. If this is successful, the Commission will draw up a report of the case for the Committee of Ministers and Secre- tary-General of the Council of Europe for publication and this will consist of a brief recital of the facts and a statement of the solution reached. However, if at this stage no solution is achieved, the Commission will draw up a report on the facts and state its opinion on whether the Convention has been breached. The Committee of Ministers and Ireland and Britain will receive copies of this report, which will not be published. It can contain proposals for a settlement, if the Commission thinks necessary. It is only at this stage that the Dublin Government will have to consider whether to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Both countries would be obliged to accept the Court's verdict, from

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