Procedural Hearing 4: 27 April 2016

Undertakings

• For more details see under Extended Undertakings on the Undertakings topic page.

It was agreed among the core participants, and by the Inquiry itself, that the Inquiry should ask the Attorney General for an undertaking which would protect witnesses from prosecution or investigation if they were to give evidence that might incriminate themselves.

The non-state core participants raised the issue of the chilling effect of such protection since it did not cover third parties who they may accidentally incriminate when giving evidence. As a result, they sought an extended undertaking which would cover this potentiality. It also felt unfair to many non-state core participants that the police would also get protection.

The purpose of this hearing was to address whether an undertaking extending to third parties needed to be sought from the Attorney General. 

In the end, the Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, decided seeking such an extended undertaking was unnecessary. However, it could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis if it was requested.

Some of the non-state core participants raised an ancillary point about the Chair’s power to compel witness statements from them. 

This is an issue which was subsequently raised a number of times and was also specifically addressed by Sir John Mitting two years later in his Foreword to the Strategic Review:

It is not only the Inquiry which is at a crossroads. If, as has been reported, some non-state core participants are undecided whether or not to continue to participate in the Inquiry, the time for decision will soon arrive. The strategic review sets out how the Inquiry will attempt to find out what happened and why on the assumption that non-state core participants do participate. I do not intend to use coercive powers to make them do so. If they do not, the Inquiry will get as close to the truth as it can without them. Strategic Review, 10 May 2018, UCPI.View Document

Speakers