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15 June 2016

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Political ex-prisoner wins historic court victory challenging Stormont sacking

● Martin Neeson at the Belfast High Court


THE Belfast High Court yesterday ruled that a Stormont department unlawfully stopped an ex-prisoner working as a groundskeeper with a conservation charity even though he had held the job for 18 years.

The judge also ruled that Peter Robinson, as the Finance Minster when Martin Neeson lost his job, broke the ministerial code by not consulting his Executive colleagues and in fact “made a decision he had no power to make” when he “disapplied” the guidance for employing political former prisoners accepted by the North’s Civil Service.

This guidance states that “any conviction for a conflict related offence that pre-dates the Good Friday Agreement should not be taken into account unless it is materially relevant to the employment being sought”.

Coiste na nIarchimí, the ex-prisoners’ association, said it was a “historic” ruling.

Coiste Director Michael Culbert said:

“This man was thrown out of employment on the basis of a conviction he was given 38 years ago when he was 16 years of age.

“Martin was released from prison in 1987 after 11 and a half years and in his ruling Judge Maguire acknowledged he had “not come under police notice since”. Despite this, the civil servant who presided over Martin’s case said he was “unsuitable” for the work and disgracefully went on to state that the west Belfast man “had a propensity to commit acts of very serious violence”.

When Martin Neeson was sacked after 18 years with the Conservation Volunteers he approached Coiste na nIarchimí who supported him as he challenged the decision made by the Department of Finance and Personnel, including advising him to take the legal challenge which led to the ruling this Tuesday, 14 June.

“This is an historic ruling,” insisted Michael Culbert, “as it challenges the guidelines that are in place and are used to discriminate against political former prisoners. With 25,000 people from the broad nationalist and republican community having been in jail on conflict-related offences we are dealing with a sizeable proportion of the population being affected.”

As Coiste has been dealing with a number of similar cases, Michael Culbert went on to appeal to political former prisoners who may have encountered discrimination because to their imprisonment to contact Coiste or any ex-POW office.

Coiste contact details

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