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NI: Right to Silence

01 January 1994

The European Commission on Human Rights has ruled that the removal of the right to silence in Northern Ireland under the Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order should be considered by the European Court. The Commission considered the case of Anthony Murray, convicted in May 1991 for assisting in the false imprisonment of Sandy Lynch. An intelligence officer in the IRA, Lynch was exposed as a Special Branch informer. The RUC raided the house in West Belfast where Lynch was being held, and arrested Murray and six others including Sinn Fein"s publicity director, Danny Morrison. Murray said nothing and offered no explanation for his presence in the house. At his trial, Lord Chief Justice Brian Hutton ruled that he was drawing a very strong inference of guilt from Murray's failure to tell the RUC anything and from his refusal to give evidence in his own defence when called upon by the court to do so. It is this latter provision, obliging judges to put defendants who have remained silent into the witness box, which is causing the British judiciary to openly oppose British Home Secretary Michael Howard's Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. Not a whisper was raised over the application of this power in Northern Ireland five years ago.