Hello and welcome to a new series of Red Lines, which we launch with an extended interview

with Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan. As the most senior judge in the

jurisdiction, he's well placed to reflect on the challenges currently facing the criminal

justice system here. This is a longer version of the wide-ranging interview we recorded for

the view in the judge's assembly room at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast.

And at the beginning of the new legal term, there was a lot that Sir Declan was keen to discuss.

We began with the subject of legacy, an issue that's seldom far from the headlines and something that occupies a considerable amount of the Lord Chief Justice's

time. I mean, legacy is an issue where the courts have been involved pretty steadily now for

quite a long time. As you know, we have a series of legacy inquests that we're trying to work through.

We plan to do all of those from the 1st of April. COVID has meant that it'll be the 1st of

October before we can get started on those. We've got 54 cases, 32 of which were referred

to us by the Attorney General from 2010 to 2019. They're going to be, require

considerable resource from our point of view and we'll keep things going for another

five-year period before we can get them finished. We have hundreds of actions in the courts relating to legacy issues

which we're going to have to try to find our way through. And we have dozens of judicial review.

So legacy has really impacted upon the volume of work and the complexity of the work that we have to do.

It's a complex issue and there are a number of very discrete areas within legacy.

You've talked about the legacy inquests there, but it's the government's desire to draw a line in a sense under some of those, many of those troubles, killings as far

as the court's procedures concerned that's causing particular consternation in certain quarters.

Simon Byrne on that issue said there's a risk, the government's idea, undermines the rule of law.

What's your assessment on that front?

Well, it is the position in this jurisdiction that if there is an evidential base for a case to be prosecuted, that subject to the views of the PPS and the public interest, that the evidential

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