Diplock courts

Diplock courts were a type of court established by the Government of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland on 8 August 1973 during The Troubles.

The right to trial by jury was suspended for certain "scheduled offences" and the court consisted of a single judge. The courts were revised by the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007, but remain in use in much the same format. The trial of Brian Shrivers and Colin Duffy for the murder of two British soldiers during a Real IRA gun attack on Massereene army base in Antrim town in 2009, was heard in a Diplock court in January 2012.

The courts were established in response to a report submitted to Parliament in December 1972 by Lord Diplock, which addressed the problem of dealing with Irish republicanism through means other than internment.

Lord Gardiner's Minority Report as part of the Parker Report in March 1972 found "no evidence of [intimidation] or of perversity in juries". The report marked the beginning of the policy of "criminalisation", whereby the State removed legal distinctions between political violence and normal crime, with political prisoners treated as common criminals. The report provided the basis for the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973, which, although later amended (with the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 and subsequent renewals), continued as the basis for counter-terrorist legislation in the UK.

Until recently the Diplock courts only tried Republican or Loyalist paramilitaries. In the first case in which a person not associated with the Troubles was tried and convicted, Abbas Boutrab, a suspected al-Qaeda sympathiser, was found guilty of having information that could assist bombing an airliner. A sentence of six years was handed down on 20 December 2005.

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