Sir Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, is set to hold a conference in Liverpool this week, where he will discuss the new Hillsborough Law, where public servants and authorities will have a duty of condor.
What happened at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989?
1989 was a triumphant year for Liverpool F.C. After winning the season’s FA Cup, yet it has been forever soiled by 97 fans’ lives lost due to a horrible disaster. On April 15, 1989, a crowd crush happened during the FA Cup semi-finals at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield after two standing-only pens got overcrowded. On top of 97 deaths, 766 people got injured.
Initially, the police shifted the blame onto the fans and named the fatalities as “accidental”, but after further evidence was presented in 2012, the claims were thrown away. In 2016, the courts ruled “unlawful” deaths due to police negligence, as well as inadequate support from other emergency services. In 2017, six people were charged with a number of offences, including “manslaughter by gross negligence” and “perverting the course of justice”.
What is Hillsborough Law?
Hillsborough Law is set to protect victims in similar situations, so their friends and family don’t have to spend decades campaigning to receive justice. Public servants will be legally bound to the duty of condor, with legal repercussions for lying, providing misleading information or withholding.
What is more, public bodies are set to be subject to a code of ethics to help prevent wider defensiveness on an organisational level.
Victims are also going to be given a stronger voice by an independent public advocate, who will be recruited by the summer of 2025. The new law will also give families legal help to help reduce costs in such instances.
At the conference, Keir Starmer will say: “For many people in this city, the speech they may remember was the one here, two years ago. Because that was when I promised, on this stage, that if I ever had the privilege to serve our country as prime minister, one of my first acts would be to bring in a Hillsborough law – a duty of candour.
“A law for Liverpool. A law for the 97. A law that people should never have needed to fight so hard to get. But that will be delivered by this Labour government.
“Today I can confirm that the duty of candour will apply to public authorities and public servants, that bill will include criminal sanctions, and that the Hillsborough law will be introduced to parliament before the next anniversary in April.”