The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (HRC) today called on the government to improve the way it investigates deaths caused by the police and security forces.

The call came as a critical review by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on how the UK government responded to a number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The Committee reviewed a range of measures taken by the government to remedy failings identified by the Court in the investigation procedures concerning several persons killed by the RUC and the British Army.

The Committee also examined circumstances giving rise to allegations of collusion between the security forces and the perpetrators of these crimes.

The European Court of Human Rights had found in six cases that the UK had violated Article 2 of the European Convention (the right to life) due to the failure to conduct effective investigations.

The Committee of Ministers, reviewing the progress made by the UK government in rectifying these failings, called for immediate action to address these deficiencies in the investigations process and to ensure that similar violations cannot occur in the future.

Commenting on the Committee’s decision, the Chief Executive of the HRC, Ms Paddy Sloan, said: “We are pleased that this important body has endorsed calls for more effective investigation of deaths caused by members of the police and security forces in Northern Ireland.

“Urgent steps must be taken to address the weaknesses found by the European Court in the investigation of these deaths and to ensure that this issue does not come before the Court again. The government should comply fully with the judgments as soon as possible."

The European Court’s judgments require states to adopt appropriate measures to provide redress for victims of human rights abuses and to prevent similar violations in future.

This process is supervised by the Committee of Ministers which issued an interim resolution last week on how the UK government had complied with rulings made by the ECHR on six Northern Ireland cases.

(MB/SP)