Editorial: The attempt to limit the scope of the Supreme Court ruling that Gerry Adams was unlawfully detained needs support

​In 2020 the Supreme Court made one of its most discredited decisions of recent years. The UK's highest court found that Gerry Adams had been unlawfully interned in 1973, because his internment paperwork was not signed by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, but by the Minister of State – his junior. The ruling relied on a peculiar interpretation of the law that prevailed at the time, which specifically enabled such a decision to be delegated. The need for such delegation on occasion was obvious, given that an NI Secretary might often be in London.

The judgement caused shockwaves in Westminster and Whitehall, not least because it threw into doubt the very principle of powers of delegation, that are necessary for the operation of government. The court's logic was decried by Oxbridge legal experts, by a former head of the UK civil service, by a Northern Ireland minister of state who was in place in 1973 and by a recently retired Supreme Court judge.

The outrage of the ruling was best expressed by the former Ireland rugby player and reconciliation activist Trevor Ringland, who said that the ruling walked on the graves of the judges who had been murdered by the IRA. He wrote on these pages that "even if we accept his claims that he was not in the IRA, Gerry Adams was at the forefront of a movement that was responsible for 60% of [Troubles] deaths”.

It was expected that the government would move legally to avoid the 2020 ruling leading to a wave of redundancy claims, and to make clear the explicit intention of parliament to allow delegation in a decision to intern. But it has not done so. Now two Tory peers, including the distinguished Lord Godson, whose Policy Exchange think tank ran essays which picked apart the ruling, are trying to counterbalance the Supreme Court ruling. The government should support their bid.