The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the largest Irish Catholic organization in the US, has responded after Sir Declan Morgan, head of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), compared former RUC members signing on for the ICRIR to former IRA members serving on PSNI recruitment panels.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the (mainly Protestant) police force in Northern Ireland from after partition until the formation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2001.
The ICRIR, established as part of the contentious 2023 Northern Ireland Legacy Act, "provides information to victims, survivors and their families about Troubles-related deaths and serious injury and promotes reconciliation."
While the UK's Labour Government announced last year that it would move to repeal and replace the Legacy Act, it said it would not scrap the ICRIR and instead work to improve it.
In February, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that the ICRIR is "incompatible with human rights laws." It is also deeply unpopular with victims' families.
On June 9, the Irish News published a column entitled "up to 26 former RUC and British soldiers working with ICRIR legacy body."
In turn, Morgan issued a response in his own Irish News column entitled "Reconciliation requires inclusion and rights."
In it, he wrote in part: "...policing and justice powers [in Northern Ireland] were devolved from Westminster to Stormont, and some people – formerly active with the IRA – were soon on the recruitment panels selecting PSNI chief constables."
Morgan noted that "around 90% of the ICRIR’s employees have never worked for the RUC or Army."
A subsequent Irish News article, also published on June 19, summed up Morgan's argument as: "If former IRA men can select the chief constable, why can’t we employ ex-RUC officers?"
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On June 20, Sean Pender, the President of the AOH, issued the following statement saying that "Sir Declan Morgan’s ICRIR Is Staffing With 'Judges in Their Own Case.'"
Pender wrote: "For Sir Declan Morgan, Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), to defend the hiring of former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army personnel with the specious argument, 'If former IRA men can select the Chief Constable, why can’t we employ ex-RUC officers?' is rhetorical sleight of hand.
"His comparison of the ICRIR’s use of former RUC and Army personnel in an investigative capacity to former IRA-affiliated individuals serving on the Policing Board to select a Chief Constable trades on political optics and false equivalence—not logical or factual integrity—and he knows it.
"The Chief Constable is responsible for present-day law enforcement—not for investigating the past actions of those who appointed him.
"The ICRIR, by contrast, is tasked with investigating unresolved crimes from the Northern Ireland conflict—cases in which the very institutions these individuals once served are central suspects.
"A full and credible pursuit of justice would, in many instances, require these individuals to investigate former colleagues, superiors, and regiments they are emotionally attached to.
"That is the textbook definition of conflict of interest.
"Sir Declan seems to have forgotten the principle he publicly affirmed in 2014: 'I do think that you need to be very careful not to be a judge in your own case.'
"That standard of impartiality was rightly invoked then. It applies even more critically now.
"Sir Declan’s analogy isn’t an appeal to justice, balance, or logic; it’s cynical misdirection that collapses under the weight of scrutiny. Successful reconciliation depends on investigations whose impartiality is beyond reproach, and whose dedication to the pursuit of justice—no matter where it leads—is beyond question.
"Sir Declan is far too experienced a jurist to miss the fallacy in his own argument. That he would advance it calls into serious question both his impartiality and the integrity of the mission he leads."
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