Mr. Roger Murray:

I will make a couple of very quick points arising from the discussion, if I might. To add to what to Mr. O'Malley has said, I congratulate Senator Boylan on her campaign. On the importance of inquests, we have spoken about their legal consequences and their consequences from a genealogical perspective. They also have consequences from a societal point of view. I will quote from the letter from the Attorney General regarding the reopening the Stardust inquiry. In his decision under section 24, which is a very important and innovative feature of the 1962 Act, the Attorney General sits in a unique position to direct an inquest to take place. Even if an inquest has already taken place or if the coroner is recalcitrant or reluctant, the Attorney General has the power to order that an inquest take place. That is what happened in the case of the Stardust inquiry. The letter from the coroner is worth quoting for the public record. He said there is "a distinct and separate imperative that the community as a whole should be satisfied, even if belatedly, that there be sufficient inquiry at any Inquest held to maximise the chances that the truth should emerge." He said this would endeavour "to serve the further public interest grounds, well established in law, of allaying rumours and suspicion, and of drawing attention to the existence of circumstances which, if unremedied, might lead to further deaths."

I am conscious that certain matters relating to Stardust are sub judice. We will not dwell on those but will rather go back to what Senator Boylan and my colleagues from the ICCL have said and the impact of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. Pursuant to our obligations under the 1998 Belfast Agreement, the State was obliged to transpose into Irish law its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, which led to the 2003 Act. There is a lot of case law in England and Wales in this regard and, if there is an Article 2 inquest where there is an element of state responsibility for deaths and an obligation to conduct an effective investigation, the reality is that there is an adversarial contest. I will quote from Dame Elish Angiolini's independent review of deaths in custody in the UK, who said:

The reality is that Inquests into deaths in police custody are almost always adversarial in nature.

[...]

There is nothing inherently wrong with an adversarial approach as it may be the best way to robustly test evidence in court. However, it needs to be recognised as such.

It was referenced in the McNaull-Scraton report that there is an inquisitorial process with an adversarial layer imposed upon it. We add our voices to those saying that the use of juries should be maximised to the nth degree because juries are smart and are the experts in common sense. Too often, I have been in courtrooms for inquests or civil cases where lawyers have been quoting law and arguing back and forth. The people who pay attention to the facts and who seem to have the monopoly on common sense are the ladies and gentlemen of the jury.