Professor Kieran McEvoy:

Yes, they are. Across the victim sector, people are very hurt, upset and angry about this. Yes, we do engage across the victim sector. We are the people providing the technical and legal information to victims' organisations and then they make up their own mind on policy issues in terms of what way they want to go.

I wish to say something that is less depressing. In preparation for coming here, we did work previously looking at amnesties and what is permissible in that regard within the European Convention on Human Rights. The first thing to say on that is that there is not a hugely developed jurisprudence, so I am speaking with that caveat. In looking at the memorandum that the Northern Ireland Office produced along with the Bill, it mentions a couple of the cases - you do not need to worry, Chairman, I will not go into all the legal cases - but I will pull out two or three important points just to get them on the record. In looking at the jurisprudence and whether the amnesty Bill might be found to be lawful, the answer is, probably not. If, for example, an interstate case was taken, from looking at the jurisprudence, there is a strong possibility that the case would be won.

Under the limited jurisprudence to grant amnesties, an amnesty has to be deemed necessary. It might be necessary where there was an ongoing conflict and the violence would continue unless an amnesty was secured as part of a broader process to end that conflict, but we are almost 30 years on from the ceasefires. Is it the idea that this is being done as something that is necessary for the peace process?

An amnesty would be required to balance the state's legitimate interests - I stress the word "legitimate" - with the individual rights of people affected by the amnesty, who are victims in this context. In the European human rights system, you cannot interfere with rights under Articles 2 and 3 to effective and independent investigations. A court will examine whether the amnesty is a legitimate state interest. If there is a long goody trail of evidence suggesting that the driver behind the amnesty is to achieve immunity for state actors, it is unlikely that a court would find that to be a legitimate state interest.

There is a tangential reference to the notion of reconciliation in two of the cases, but it is something of a sidebar discussion. Obviously, the British Government has latched onto framing this initiative as a reconciliation process and to privileging history and memorialisation as part of the broader peace and reconciliation process. A court will examine whether it is a genuine reconciliation process. It is difficult to see how it could be sold as a genuine reconciliation process if it is opposed by all of the political parties in Northern Ireland, the Irish Government, the victims' communities, civil society, churches, trade union movements and so on. As a lawyer, I would have to stand up and try to make the argument before a number of judges that this was a genuine reconciliation process knowing that the other side was going to hit me with the reality of what was happening.

In no circumstances in the jurisprudence can there be an amnesty for torture. That is covered by Article 3. The state can lawfully kill people in certain circumstances, for example, in a shoot-out between police officers and armed robbers. The State can never lawfully torture someone. Non-state actors, such as people involved in punishment violence, can never be amnestied; this amnesty would cover those.

The "good" news is that, if the Irish Government decided that it was in its interests to make an interstate challenge as probably the quickest and most effective way of tackling the amnesty instead of waiting on individual victims to get through all of the domestic processes before going to Strasbourg, there is a strong chance that it would win. That is the cheerier bit of this discussion. It would be for the court to decide, of course, but having re-examined the jurisprudence around the space for amnesties, I do not see this amnesty meeting those tests.