Allegations had been made about police collusion with killings in Northern Ireland.
Held: Where there was credible information as to a possible perpetrator of an unlawful killing, there was a duty to investigate that evidence. Here the original investigations had lacked the characteristic of independence of the subjects of the investigation.
The court said that: ‘it may be that sometime later, information purportedly casting new light on the circumstances of the death comes into the public domain’ and that ‘[t]he issue then arises as to whether, and in what form, the procedural obligation to investigate is revived’. It then gave examples including ‘deliberate concealment of evidence’ which only subsequently comes to light, or later items of evidence which ‘cast doubt on the effectiveness of the original investigation and trial’. However in para 70 the court accepted that it was not right to say that ‘any assertion or allegation can trigger a fresh investigative obligation under article 2’, but emphasised that ‘state authorities must be sensitive to any information or material which has the potential either to undermine the conclusions of an earlier investigation or to allow an earlier inconclusive investigation to be pursued further’.
[2007] ECHR 989, Times 12-Dec-2007, 32457/04
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights
Human Rights
Citing:
See Also – Brecknell v The United Kingdom ECHR 6-Mar-2007
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Cited by:
Cited – MGN Limited v United Kingdom ECHR 18-Jan-2011
The applicant publisher said that the finding against it of breach of confidence and the system of success fees infringed it Article 10 rights to freedom of speech. It had published an article about a model’s attendance at Narcotics anonymous . .
Cited – McCaughey and Another, Re Application forJudicial Review SC 18-May-2011
The claimants sought a fuller inquest into deaths at the hands of the British Army in 1990 in Northern Ireland. On opening the inquest, the coroner had declined to undertake to hold a hearing compliant with article 2, and it had not made progress. . .
Cited – Keyu and Others v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Another SC 25-Nov-2015
The Court was asked whether the respondents should be required to hold a public inquiry into a controversial series of events in 1948, when a Scots Guards patrol was alleged to shot and killed 24 unarmed civilians in a village called Batang Kali, in . .
Cited – Finucane, Re Application for Judicial Review SC 27-Feb-2019
(Northern Ireland) The deceased solicitor was murdered in his home in 1989, allegedly by loyalists. They had never been identified, though collusion between security forces and a loyalist paramilitary was established. The ECHR and a judge led . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights, Limitation
Updated: 16 January 2022; Ref: scu.262977