The chairman of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Lord Saville of Newdigate, has warned that European human rights legislation may hinder his tribunal in its search for the truth.
He was speaking after a lawyer asked why the names of British soldiers – which had been previously available – had been redacted from a document to preserve their anonymity. Redacted names are those which are blanked out of documents to protect the identity of an individual.
In their submissions requesting anonymity before the Saville Inquiry, a large number of soldiers – as well as other witnesses – have argued that their rights under article two of European legislation on human rights would be ignored.
Article two of the European legislation governs an individuals right to life. Those seeking anonymity claimed that by revealing their identity, their right to life would be compromised. The inquiry subsequently ruled that the vast majority of soldiers associated with Bloody Sunday should be granted anonymity.
While questioning former military intelligence officer, Soldier 021, yesterday, Barry MacDonald QC, for the majority of Bloody Sunday families, raised the matter again.
Lord Saville told him: "I hope you understand our problem. We, when it is brought to our attention, have to take enormous care not to infringe anybody's article two rights and there are passages in that redacted portion which, to our minds, would allow people or carry a high risk
of people being identified who may well have an article two right to remain anonymous."
The British law lord accepted Mr MacDonald's suggestion that the redaction of the document impeded his search for the truth.
"The difficulty is that article two may indeed have that effect because it is overriding and it is a statutory duty on us to defend Article two rights... It may well be at the end of the day, because of article two, this inquiry is not going to be as complete in its search for the truth as might otherwise be the case. I am afraid we simply have to live with that possibility," Lord Saville said.
