THE Belfast High Court ruled today that conditional immunity from prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes, contained in the Westminster government’s controversial Legacy Act, is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Act, passed last September, gives a conditional amnesty for suspects and introduces a ban on inquests and future civil actions related to the so-called Troubles.

But today the judge said: “There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the Act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, indeed the evidence is to the contrary.”

The case was brought by Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Lynda McManus and Brigid Hughes.

Ms Dillon’s husband, Seamus, was shot dead in a loyalist attack in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, in 1997.

Mr McEvoy survived a loyalist shooting in Kilcoo, Co Down, in 1992.

Ms McManus’s father, James, was one of the wounded in the Sean Graham bookmakers massacre earlier the same year.

Ms Hughes’s husband, Anthony, was an innocent man killed as he drove into the SAS ambush of an IRA unit in Loughgall in 1987.

The challenge could take several years, as it could be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the British government would “take some time to consider” its response to the ruling.