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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. ==Description== 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,〔(Report of the Commission to Consider Legal Procedures to deal with Terrorist Activities in Northern Ireland ) (Cmmd. 5185); full text of the Diplock Report〕 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 () or of perversity in juries".〔Greer & White: Abolishing The Diplock Courts, page 91: Report of a Committee to consider, in the context of civil liberties and human rights, measures to deal with terrorism in Northern Ireland, Lord Gardener.〕 The report marked the beginning of the policy of "criminalisation",〔Donohue, Laura (2007): Counter Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom 1922–2000, S. 155〕 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.〔(Al-Qaeda terror suspect convicted ), BBC News Online, 24 November 2005〕 A sentence of six years was handed down on 20 December 2005.〔(Al-Qaeda terror suspect is jailed ), BBC News Online, 20 December 2005〕 Diplock courts were common in Northern Ireland for crimes connected to terrorism. The number of cases heard in Diplock courts reached a peak of 329 yearly in the mid-1980s. With the Northern Ireland peace process that figure fell to 60 a year in the mid-2000s.〔, Northern Ireland Office consultation paper, August 2006〕 On 1 August 2005, the Northern Ireland Office announced that the Diplock courts were to be phased out, and in August 2006 they announced that the courts were to be abolished effective July 2007. This was achieved under the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. Non-jury trials, however, may still be used in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere in the UK, but only in exceptional cases.〔〔(Jury trials 'to become the norm' ), BBC News Online, 11 August 2006〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Diplock courts」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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