Summary of Judgment - Court Allows Appeal by Raymond McCord
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Neutral Citation | Summary of Judgment - Court Allows Appeal by Raymond McCord |
| Court | Court of Judicature (NI) |
| Date | 18 January 2019 |
Judicial Communications Office
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18 January 2019
COURT ALLOWS APPEAL BY RAYMOND McCORD
Summary of Judgment
The Court of Appeal today set out its reasons for allowing an appeal by Raymond McCord against a
case management decision not to remove a stay on the hearing of his application to issue
judicial review proceedings against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (“PSNI”), the
Department of Justice (“DoJ”) and the Coroner’s Service (“CSNI”) seeking a declaration that
the delay in conducting an inquest into the death of his son violated his rights under Article
2 of the ECHR.
Background
The background into the investigation of the applicant’s son’s murder on 9 November 1997
is set out in paragraphs [2] – [6] of the judgment. There have been a number of preliminary
hearings before the coroner since 2001 but these had been adjourned as a result of an
investigation by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (“PONI”), a Police Service of
Northern Ireland (“PSNI”) investigation and by the Public Prosecution Service (“PPS”).
On 6 June 2017 an application for leave to issue judicial review proceedings was made by
the applicant seeking an order requiring the Chief Constable to provide disclosure to the
coroner of the non-sensitive investigation materials touching upon the death of his son and a
declaration that the failure to provide prompt disclosure of the information to the coroner
had occasioned delay which violated his rights under Article 2 of the Convention. On 7
November 2017 the applicant amended his Order 53 statement to add claims for delay
against the coroner and the DoJ.
On 8 February 2018, the trial judge gave directions requiring the parties to set out their
proposals for progressing the case. On 13 March 2018 he made a case management direction
ordering a stay of the proceedings noting that at preliminary hearings in 2012 the applicant
had adopted the position that the inquest should not proceed until the police activities had
been completed. The trial judge referred to a number of pending cases dealing with legacy
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The first was the case of Jordan [2015] NICA 66 dealing with the circumstances in which as a matter of case
management the Court of Appeal was entitled to postpone the award of damages for delay in the conduct of
an inquest w here the inquest proceedings had not been finalised. There were three ca ses, McQuillan, Barnard
and McGuigan and McKenna, dealing with the circumstances in which the A rticle 2 obligation could be
revived on the basis of the principles set out in Brecknell v UK (2008) 46 EHRR 42. The case of Finucane was a
further case dealing with retrospectivity. The judge referred to the case of Bell being an Article 2 case on
funding of the PONI although the judgment of the Court of Appeal indicates that Article 2 was not relied upon
in that appeal. The final case referred to was Hughes which dealt with the issue of funding of the Coroner
Service which was completed on 8 February 2018 and in respect of whic h judgement was in fact given on 8
March 2018. The learned trial judge had noted the judgement as being reserved.
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