Abstract
On 31 January 1972 the British government responded to the public outcry which followed the Bloody Sunday shootings by announcing that a tribunal of inquiry would be set up under the sole chairmanship of the lord chief justice, Lord Widgery. The tribunal’s terms of reference were to inquire into ‘a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely the events on Sunday 30 January which led to loss of life in connection with the procession in Londonderry on that day’.1 The tribunal interpreted these terms of reference to mean that its purpose was ‘to reconstruct, with as much detail as was necessary, the events which led up to the shooting of a number of people in the streets of Londonderry on the afternoon of Sunday 30 January’.2
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Notes and References
Report of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into events on Sunday, 30th January 1972, which led to loss of life in connection with the procession in Londonderry on that day by The Rt. Hon. Lord Widgery, O.B.E, T.D. (London: HMSO, 1972) (hereafter Widgery Report), para. 1.
Ibid., para. 2.
Ibid., para. 2.
Ibid., para. 8.
This act also applies in Ireland, as amended by the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1979.
Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, s. 1(1).
Report of the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry (London: HMSO, 1966) (hereafter Salmon Report), para. 28.
Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, s. 1(2).
Ibid., s. 1(3).
Ibid., s. 2(a).
Ibid., s. 2(b).
Salmon Report, op. cit., para. 32.
Ibid., para. 48.
Ibid., para. 49.
Ibid., para. 28.
S. A. De Smith, Judicial Review of Administrative Action, 3rd edn (London: Stevens & Sons, 1973), ch. 5.
The confidential memo was eventually discovered (misplaced in a publicly accessible file) in 1995 by Jane Winter, Director of British Irish Rights Watch.
Widgery Report, op. cit., para. 5.
Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969, Cmnd 566 (Belfast: HMSO, 1972) (hereafter Scarman Report).
Salmon Report, op. cit., para. 87.
See for example Farrell v Ministry of Defence [1980] 1 All ER 166.
Widgery Report, para. 8.
Dr McClean has written a book about his personal experience of Bloody Sunday; see R. McClean, The Road to Bloody Sunday, originally published in 1983 it has since been reprinted (Derry: Guildhall Press, 1997).
Widgery Report, para. 71.
Ibid., para. 8.
Ibid., para. 2.
Salmon Report, para 49.
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© 2000 Dermot P. J. Walsh
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Walsh, D.P.J. (2000). The Widgery Inquiry. In: Bloody Sunday and the Rule of Law in Northern Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514461_3
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