Miscarriage of justice
Supreme court ruling redefines miscarriages of justice
Britain's top judges rule that Northern Irish pair who suffered miscarriage of justice are entitled to compensation.
Two men from Northern Ireland whose convictions for murder during the Troubles were quashed following fresh evidence are entitled to compensation, the supreme court has ruled.
In a fresh definition of what constitutes a miscarriage of justice, Britain's most senior judges said that Raymond McCartney and Eamonn MacDermott should receive payments.
The men were convicted in January 1979 of murder and IRA membership but had their convictions quashed in February 2007. Millions of pounds could be awarded to scores of other victims from Northern Ireland as a result of the decision.
The court rejected a similar challenge by Andrew Adams, a former aircraft engineer, of Newcastle upon Tyne, who spent 14 years in jail before his murder conviction was ruled unsafe.
Barry George, whose conviction for the murder of the TV presenter Jill Dando was quashed, has been fighting for years for compensation; he also joined the case. Nick Baird, the solicitor for George, said after the judgment he was encouraged and would be asking the Ministry of Justice to reconsider its refusal to give him compensation.
By a narrow majority, the judges held that a miscarriage of justice occurs "when a new or newly discovered fact shows conclusively that the evidence against a defendant has been so undermined that no conviction could possibly be based upon it".
The supreme court panel said: "A claimant for compensation will not need to prove that he was innocent of the crime but he will have to show that, on the basis of the facts as they are now known, he should not have been convicted or that conviction could not possibly be based on those facts."
Not all miscarriages of justice will lead to compensation. "Procedural deficiencies that led to irregularities in the trial or errors in the investigation of offences will not suffice to establish entitlement to compensation," the judges ruled.
Delivering the judgment, Lord Phillips, president of the Supreme Court, said: "It is not satisfactory to make the mere quashing of a conviction the trigger for payment of compensation." Conversely, he noted, the new test: "will not guarantee that all those who are entitled to compensation are, in fact, innocent."
McCartney, a Sinn Féin assembly member for Foyle, said his decision to pursue the case had been justified. "I feel totally vindicated," he said.
"This has been a long process and I want to pay due gratitude to my legal team who have been magnificent throughout this. The supreme court has allowed us to pursue compensation ... [The] former lord chief justice (of Northern Ireland) Brian Kerr has stated in the course of the judgment that not only should we have been acquitted but shouldn't have faced trial in the first place.
"This is damning indictment of the RUC's (Royal Ulster Constabulary) interrogation techniques at the time and a damning indictment of the actions of the Public Prosecution Service at the time."
Adams said: "I welcome the fact that the majority of the supreme court has not agreed with the justice secretary's proposal to solely compensate those people who he decides have been completely exonerated of the crime they were wrongly convicted of.
"But I am bitterly disappointed that ... [my case has not been] accepted for compensation within the new definition. I maintain my innocence of the murder of Jack Royal – as I have from day one."
Responding to the report that Barry George would renew his application for compensation, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "We will continue to fight the Barry George case. We still think that under the new measure he would still not be entitled to compensation."
Since 2006 the Ministry of Justice has awarded compensation to 59 applicants out of 228, according to figures given to the court. The department believes that compensation would "still only be paid in very few cases".
(Published by The Guardian - May 11, 2011)