saturday 14th february 2009, · 3:20 – 3:45 intimidation of defence dato’ param lawyers...

A conference to commemoratethe 20th anniversary of themurder of Patrick Finucane

Saturday 14th February 2009, Edmund Burke Theatre,

Trinity College, Dublin

Pat Finucane Conference 10/12/08 10:17

9:30 – 10:00 Registration and coffee

10:00 – 10:15 Chair’s opening remarks Inez McCormack

PATRICK FINUCANE REMEMBERED

10:15 – 10:45 A memoir of Patrick Geraldine Finucane Finucane’s life and work

POLICING, POLICE POWERS, AND CONDITIONS IN DETENTION

10:45 – 11:00 The bad old days: what Clara Reilly lawyers like Patrick Finucane and detainees had to contend with

11:00 – 11:20 What Patrick Finucane did Peter Maddenabout it, the reforms achieved, and the challenges that remain to be met

11:20 – 11:35 Discussion

PRISONS AND PRISONERS’ RIGHTS

11:35 – 11:50 A prisoner’s viewpoint Michael Culbert

11:50 – 12:10 What Patrick Finucane did Mike Ritchie about it, the reforms achieved, and the challenges that remain to be met


12:30 – 1:30 Lunch

TIME SESSION SPEAKERS

PROGRAMME


INQUESTS

1:30 – 1:50 Problems with the inquest Fiona Docherty BL system, past and present, and the reforms achieved

1:50 – 2:10 How Patrick Finucane Michael Mansfield QC paved the way and the challenges that remain to be met


USING THE COURTS

2:25 – 3:10 Developments in judicial Mr Justice Treacy review and European law, including challenges for the future


3:00 – 3:20 Coffee

INTIMIDATION OF LAWYERS AND COLLUSION

3:20 – 3:45 Intimidation of defence Dato’ Param lawyers Cumaraswamy

3:45 – 4:10 Collusion Judge Peter Cory

4:10 – 4:30 Exposing collusion John Ware

4:30 – 4:50 Collusion: the NGO Jane Winter and perspective Michael Posner


5:10 – 5:30 Chair’s concluding remarks

A conference to commemorate the 20th anniversary of

the murder of Patrick Finucane Saturday 14th February

2009, Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College, Dublin

TIME SESSION SPEAKERS


Inez McCormack

Inez McCormack is one of the mostinfluential civil rights leaders in NorthernIreland today. She played a critical role in the1998 Good Friday Peace Accord, continuesto advocate for equal rights and fair labourpractices for women and minorities and shewas a signatory of the McBride Principles.She formerly directed the Northern Irelandsection of the trade union UNISON. Havingserved as the first female President of theIrish Congress of Trade Unions, InezMcCormack is currently Chair of theNorth/South Health Service Partnership,Chair of the Participation and RightsProgramme and Senior Advisor to the GlobalCoalition for Women’s Rights/Worker’sRights. She is also a founding member andDeputy Chair of the Northern Ireland EqualOpportunities Commission and a foundingmember of both the Northern Ireland FairEmployment Commission and the NorthernIreland Human Rights Commission, and is awell-known writer and broadcaster. She is afounder member of the Participation and thePractice of Rights (PPR) Project which worksin the north and south of Ireland supportingcommunities to use a human rights-basedapproach to address the issues of social andeconomic deprivation and inequality.

Geraldine Finucane

Geraldine Finucane, widow of Pat Finucane,has been a tireless campaigner for justice forher husband for the last 20 years. She hasalso supported many other families in theirsearch for truth and justice.

Clara Reilly

Clara Reilly is chairperson of Relatives forJustice and has devoted the past 35 years ofher life to helping individuals and familiesseeking truth and justice around the loss oftheir loved ones and promoting respect forhuman rights and human dignity. She wasa member of the Association for LegalJustice (ALJ), a human rights group whichmonitored the situation in the North ofIreland in the 1970s and 80s. ALJ collectedstatements which formed part of the Irish

Government’s case against the UnitedKingdom for torture of prisoners duringinternment at the European Court of HumanRights, in which Britain was found guilty ofdegrading and inhuman treatment in 1976.The ALJ held two major internationaltribunals on the use of plastic bullets and alawyers’ inquiry into shoot-to-kill deaths bysecurity forces in Northern Ireland in 1984.Clara Reilly was a founder member of theUnited Campaign Against Plastic Bullets,which was formed in 1984. She hascampaigned along with families against theuse of plastic bullets, and has travelledlocally, nationally and internationally raisingawareness of the horrific injuries inflicted bythese weapons.

Peter Madden

Peter Madden founded law firm Madden &Finucane with Patrick Finucane in 1979. Inthe ten years that they practiced lawtogether the firm developed a reputation forpursuing human rights cases at home andabroad. He has supported Patrick Fincane’sfamily in their campaign for a fair andindependent public inquiry into his murdersince February 1989. Madden & Finucanewas established to secure the protection ofclients' civil liberties and human rights andthe two partners pioneered the use of theEuropean Court of Human Rights and judicialreview cases to secure vindication for clientsin the 1980s.

Peter Madden has advised on human rightsissues and lectured around the worldincluding North and South America, Europe,Asia and the Middle East. He hasestablished Madden & Finucane as one ofthe leading criminal defence firms in Irelandwith what analysts describe as a "stellarreputation". Peter Madden was one of theleading solicitors in the Bloody SundayInquiry. He is a member of the LawSociety’s Access to Justice Committee andthe Solicitors’ Criminal Bar Association whichrecently appointed him as one of thecoordinators in the Association's Legal AidCoordinating Group. He is also a qualifiedtrial advocate.

SPEAKER PROFILES


Michael Culbert

Michael Culbert is the director of Coiste nan-Iarchimí, the network for republican ex-prisoners. He was a social worker until 1978when he was sentenced to 16 years in LongKesh. After his release Michael completedhis masters degree and started working withCoiste, initially as a full-time counsellor andthen as their regional development worker.He was appointed to the position of Directorin 2008, and is working for the social,economic and emotional well being ofcurrent and former republican prisoners andtheir families. Michael knew PatrickFinucane in a personal capacity for manyyears.

Mike Ritchie

Mike Ritchie is the director of the Committeeon the Administration of Justice, NorthernIreland’s foremost human rights group,which was awarded the prestigious Councilof Europe’s Human Rights Prize in 1998.Born in the Middle East of Presbyterianmissionary parents, he spent some time inKenya before returning to Scotland where heattended school and university. After aperiod living in Egypt working for the VSO,he moved to Northern Ireland in 1980 andhas lived there ever since. He worked withthe Committee on the Administration ofJustice (CAJ) as Research Officer from 1989to 1995 carrying out advocacy on behalf ofvictims of human rights abuses on all sidesof the community. He then worked for threeyears with the Northern Ireland Associationfor the Care and Resettlement of Offenders(NIACRO) as their information and researchmanager.

From 1998 - 2008 he was director of Coistena n-Iarchimí, which he developed into animportant vehicle for contact and dialoguewith participants of all political backgrounds.He returned to CAJ as their Director in 2008.At his appointment the CAJ ChairpersonKieran McEvoy commended Mike Ritchie’s“long standing commitment to the humanrights of all irrespective of background.”


Fiona Doherty BL

After studying law at Trinity College, DublinFiona Doherty was awarded a mastersdegree in human rights law with distinctionfrom Queen’s University Belfast. She wascalled to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1997and to the Bar of Ireland in 2001. Shespecialises in public law, coronial law andhuman rights law. She acted as counsel forthe families of three deceased and twowounded before the Bloody Sunday Inquiryand for the applicants in the European Courtof Human Rights cases of Kelly & ors v UK,Shanaghan v UK, McShane v UK andFinucane v UK. Fiona is a member of theGeneral Council of the Bar of NorthernIreland and a member of the Bar Council’sHuman Rights Advisory Committee. Shewas formerly chairperson of the Committeeon the Administration of Justice (CAJ) andserved on CAJ’s executive committee for 12years. Fiona is joint author of the NI HumanRights Commission paper InvestigatingLethal Force Deaths in Northern Ireland: TheApplication of Article 2 of the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights (2006).

Michael Mansfield QC

Michael Mansfield is a leading internationalhuman rights lawyer and currently aconsultant to the Finucane family’s legalteam. He was called to the Bar in 1967 andestablished Tooks Chambers in 1984, duringthe miners’ strikes, and became Queen'sCounsel in 1989. Michael Mansfield hasrepresented defendants in criminal trials,appeals and inquiries in some of the mostcontroversial legal cases the country hasseen, including those of Stephen Lawrence,the Birmingham Six, and the Bloody SundayInquiry. He also chaired an Inquiry inCullyhanna into the death in an allegedshoot-to-kill incident in which Fergal Caraherdied. Michael Mansfield has presented anumber of television documentaries andseries, including Presumed Guilty for BBC1.He is a regular contributor to current affairsprogrammes and was a panel member ofThe Moral Maze for many years.

He has also published numerous articles forall the major broadsheets and law journalsand most recently The Home Lawyer - alegal handbook. He is a member ofInterights, President of Amicus, President ofthe National Civil Rights Movement andPresident of the Haldane Society of SocialistLawyers. He is also a Sponsor of BritishIrish RIGHTS WATCH.

Mr Justice Treacy

The Honourable Mr Justice Treacy waseducated at St Malachy’s College andQueen’s University, Belfast. He was calledto the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1979 andtook silk in 1999. He was called to the Bar ofIreland in September 1990 and to the InnerBar of Ireland in 2000. Séamus Treacybecame a Judge of the High Court ofJudicature in Northern Ireland in January2007. Before his elevation to the bench hewas an acclaimed expert in human rights,criminal, public and European law, acting forpeople from all sides of the community. Hetook many pioneering cases to the EuropeanCourt of Human Rights and was responsiblefor many landmark judicial review cases inNorthern Ireland, and also appeared in theBloody Sunday Inquiry and, before bebecame a judge, the Billy Wright Inquiry.He was a close friend of Patrick Finucane,and they worked together on manyimportant cases. He has delivered papersand spoken at conferences on human rights,criminal law and fair employment issues. Hewas an Arbitrator and Member of the Panelof Arbitrators of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy

Param Cumaraswamy is a distinguishedMalaysian jurist who has devoted his life tothe pursuit of the rule of law and who hasconsistently supported the call for a publicinquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane.He was admitted as a barrister by the InnerTemple in London in 1966 and has practicedin Kuala Lumpur since 1967. From 1986 to1989, he was chairman of the Human RightsCommittee of the International BarAssociation.

SPEAKER PROFILES


He was a commissioner of the InternationalCommission of Jurists from 1990 to May2000. In 1994 he was appointed the UnitedNations Special Rapporteur on theIndependence of Judges and Lawyers bythe UN Commission on Human Rights andserved that mandate until 2003. As the UNSpecial Rapporteur, he intervened in morethan 100 countries and conducted numerousfact-finding missions to investigate attackson the independence of judges and lawyersand the rule of law. In 1985, Dato’ ParamCumaraswamy was charged with seditionfor publicly calling on the Pardons Board ofKuala Lumpur, Malaysia, not to discriminateagainst a poor labourer's petition forcommutation of a death sentence.

Following an international outcry, thecharges were dropped and his vindicationwas hailed as a landmark victory for freedomof expression in Malaysia. In 1988, Dato’Param Cumaraswamy helped lead thedefence of six Malaysian Supreme Courtjudges whose independence apparentlythreatened executive powers. His effortsearned him the title Dato’ conferred by aSultan in the Malaysian state of Kelantan.He received the 2002 "Justice in the WorldAward" from the International Association ofJudges and in 1999 the International Peaceand Justice Award from the Irish AmericanUnity Conference. Dato’ ParamCumaraswamy is an honorary member ofthe Law Society of England and Waleswhose President, Peter Williamson, praisedMr. Cumaraswamy as "a courageousdefender of human rights,"


Judge Peter Cory

The Honourable Peter Carteret Cory is aformer member of the Supreme Court ofCanada. He was called to the Ontario Bar in1950 and was appointed Queen's Counselin 1963. He practiced law with Holden,Murdoch and was elected a Bencher of theLaw Society of Upper Canada" Law Societyof Upper Canada in 1971. He is pastchairman of the Ontario Civil LibertiesSection of the Canadian Bar Association,former President of the County of York LawAssociation, past National Director of theCanadian Bar Association, and formerPresident of the Advocates' Society.

He was appointed to the Supreme Court ofOntario in 1974, Ontario Court of Appeal in1981, and was appointed to the SupremeCourt of Canada in 1989. He retired fromthe Supreme Court in 1999. He served asthe 11th Chancellor of York University from2004 to 2008. In 2002 he was made aCompanion of the Order of Canada. JudgeCory was appointed by both the British andIrish Governments in 2001 to preside overthe Collusion Inquiry into the murders ofPatrick Finucane and others. The CoryCollusion Inquiry Report on the PatrickFinucane case was published by the BritishGovernment on 1 April 2004. Itrecommended that the UK Government holda public enquiry into the murder under theformat provided for in the 1921 Tribunal ofInquiries Act which has not beenimplemented.

John Ware

John Ware is a distinguished BBC journalistand one of his specialities has been theconflict in Northern Ireland which he hascovered regularly since 1974. He beganworking with Panorama in 1986 and in June2002 he uncovered the role of MilitaryIntelligence and RUC Special Branch Officersin the murder of Pat Finucane. He exposedthe lengths to which both services havegone in their attempts to disguise suchcriminal activities.

This Panorama Special was the result of 13years of research. John Ware alsopresented Rough Justice, Taking Libertiesand Inside Story between 1992 and 1997.Several of the cases he covered werereferred back to the Court of Appeal wheresome of the convictions were quashed. Hewas named Broadcast Journalist of the Yearin 2001 for Who Bombed Omagh? whichalso received the Current Affairs HomeAward.

Jane Winter

Jane Winter is the Director of British IrishRIGHTS WATCH (BIRW). BIRW is anindependent non-governmental organisationand registered charity that monitors thehuman rights dimension of the conflict andthe peace process in Northern Ireland. Itsservices are available to anyone whosehuman rights have been affected by theconflict, regardless of religious, political or

SPEAKER PROFILES


community affiliations, and the organisationtakes no position on the eventual outcomeof the peace process. With a background insocial research and legal casework, JaneWinter helped to found BIRW in 1990,where she worked as a volunteer until beingappointed its Director in 1995. She hasworked on many landmark cases, includingBloody Sunday, Patrick Finucane, RosemaryNelson, Robert Hamill, Billy Wright and theDublin and Monaghan bombings. In 2007Jane Winter was awarded the BeaconAward for Northern Ireland, and in 2008 theIrish World Damien Gaffney Award.

Michael Posner

Michael Posner, founder and President ofHuman Rights First (formerly the LawyersCommittee for Human Rights), has been atthe forefront of the international humanrights movement for 30 years. He hashelped the organisation earn a reputation forleadership in the areas of refugee protection,advancing a rights-based approach tonational security, challenging crimes againsthumanity, and combating discrimination. Hehas testified before the US Congress on awide range of human rights and refugeeissues. In 1980 he played a key role inproposing and campaigning for the first USlaw providing for political asylum, part of theRefugee Act of 1980. Human Rights Firsthas fought to strengthen systems ofaccountability in many countries wherehuman rights violations occur, and hascampaigned for an independent publicinquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucanefor many years.


DONATORS

TThhee FFiinnuuccaannee ffaammiillyy wwoouulldd ll iikkee ttoo tthhaannkk tthhee ffooll lloowwiinngg ffoorr tthheeiirr ssuuppppoorrttffoorr tthheessee eevveennttss,, iinncclluuddiinngg ssoommee ddoonnoorrss wwhhoo pprreeffeerr ttoo rreemmaaiinnaannoonnyymmoouuss.. AAnnyyoonnee wwhhoo mmaakkeess aa ddoonnaattiioonn aafftteerr tthhee ppuubbll iiccaattiioonn ooff tthhiissbbrroocchhuurree wwiill ll bbee aacckknnoowwlleeddggeedd iinn tthhee ccoonnffeerreennccee rreeppoorrtt..

The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Bar Council of Ireland, The Bar Council of NorthernIreland, Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Rory Brady SC, British Irish RIGHTS WATCH, JimBrosnahan, Frank Buttimer, Conflict Resolution Unit, Irish Department of ForeignAffairs, Rosemary Connolly, Jim Cullen, Cumann Na Meirleach Felon's ClubAndersonstown, Department of Sport Trinity College Dublin, Aileen Donnelly, PatrickFahy, Remy Farrell, Cian Ferriter, Colman FitzGerald SC, Bill Flynn, Garden CourtChambers, Alan Gannon, The Irish American Unity Conference, The Joseph RowntreeCharitable Trust, Seamus Kane, The Law Society Northern Ireland, Sean Mackin,Madden & Finucane, Turlough O'Donnell, Màirtin Ó Muilleoir, Leo Mulrooney, Michael Mansfield QC, The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, BarryMacdonald QC, Terry McAuley, Barra McGrory, Frank Milloy, Seán Mitchell, CormacÓ Dulachaín, The Pavilion Bar Trinity College Dublin, Mary Pike, The Roddy McCorleySociety, Trinity College Dublin, David Wheelahan, Kevin Winters

Pat entered Trinity College in 1968 andduring his years as an undergraduate notonly played for Dublin UniversityAssociation Football Club but was captainof the club for two consecutive years1972 – 74 .

On Sunday 15th February 2009 a gamewill be played in his honour and followingthis a bench overlooking College Park willbe dedicated to his memory.All are welcome.

11:00 amPlayers taking part in game assemble inPavilion Changing rooms, College Park

11.30 amGame commences

12:45 pmGame finishes

1:00 pmDedication of bench, sponsored by TheDepartment of Sport, Trinity College Dublin/DUCAC

1:30 pmPavilion Bar Reception, sponsored by the Pavilion Bar

Those wishing to play should contactme Terry McAuley on [email protected]

THE FOOTBALL MATCH


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Contact

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Fee: £100/€115(concessions: £20/€25)

Tick box to indicateattendance at the footballmatch (so we can gaugenumbers for thereception – all free)

Address to sendregistration form and fee:Finucane Conference,BIRW, 13b Hillgate Place,London SW12 9ES, UK or [email protected]

Registration


saturday 14th february 2009, · 3:20 – 3:45 intimidation of defence dato’ param lawyers...

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