Victims of three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as the "Troubles" started a legal challenge in Belfast Tuesday to a UK law granting immunity to past combatants in the conflict.
The law has been fiercely criticised by families of those who died during that period, as well as rights groups, all political parties in Northern Ireland, and the Irish government.
"The UK government passed a law that denies our rights," John McEvoy, a survivor of a 1992 sectarian gun attack on a bar, told reporters outside Belfast's Royal Courts of Justice before an opening hearing.
A court later found evidence of collusion between state security forces and the pro-UK loyalist paramilitary attackers, and that the state failed to properly investigate his case.
The new law, adopted by the British parliament in September, calls for the creation of a truth and recovery commission and offers amnesty to British security personnel and paramilitaries if they cooperate with its enquiries.
It will also end future civil litigation and inquests into deaths which occurred during the Troubles, and is set to limit investigations of crimes from the era.
They would be undertaken by the commission.
Lawyers for those mounting the challenge argue the act is unconstitutional and incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
But veterans groups have welcomed the move, saying former British soldiers have been unfairly targeted in prosecutions.
More than 3,500 people were killed during the conflict that began in the 1960s over British rule in Northern Ireland.
Around 1,200 deaths remain under investigation, according to the UK government.
Martina Dillon, whose husband Seamus Dillon was shot and killed in 1997 and has an inquest pending, said she will fight "until I get truth and justice for my husband".
According to Amnesty International UK the circumstances of the killing also suggested collusion between paramilitaries and the state.
"I'll never get over losing my husband. It doesn't go away, you live with it morning, noon and night," Dillon added.
Europe's leading rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has also expressed "serious concerns" about the amnesty and its compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), of which the UK is a signatory.
"We have repeatedly warned the UK government during the passage of this legislation that if they push this through to law we would see them in court," Grainne Teggart, Amnesty's Northern Ireland Deputy Director, said Tuesday.
Teggart, whose group is supporting the victims, said the law "prioritises perpetrators at the expense of victims' rights".
"If the court speaks then whatever government is in place must listen," she added.
