Ms Alyson Kilpatrick:

I will not go through all the elements now, but one of the essential elements of Article 2 compliance in independent, effective investigations is the independence of the investigators in respect of those not only who may be suspected but also those who may be implicated in any way, including in the training or oversight of those who may be perpetrators. This Bill is even worse than what I describe. The individual may be very independently minded but will not be independent of the state. Given how the Bill is set up, it necessarily requires the Secretary of State to be involved in making most of the really critical decisions. Most people are not even going to get near the independent mechanism. This is one of the really difficult issues with this Bill. Most people will be cut off before they even get near the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. Even where there is a very independent person sitting in an investigative capacity, most people will not get anywhere near him or her. The Secretary of State will essentially decide those who will and will not get to do so. Even if there are really good people – I am sure there are some really fantastic independent people who would be able to do this – they will simply not be independent enough to comply with Article 2 if the framework is not in place for them to act independently and if it can be overridden by, for example, the Secretary of State. That is the way I look at it. You then have to add all the other things in the Bill to that, but those two basic points are enough to defeat any assessment of the Bill's compatibility, in my view.