Six prisoners serving time in Northern Ireland arising from violent deaths have launched appeals following the UK Supreme Court ruling joint enterprise which was issued in February.

The Supreme Court ruled that the law, which had allowed people to be convicted of murder even if they did not inflict the fatal blow, has been misinterpreted since 1984 when the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council allowed guilty verdicts to stand in a case in which three gang members armed with knives burst into the home of a prostitute and her husband in Hong Kong, intending to collect a debt.

The husband was stabbed to death at the hand of at least one of the gang members and all three were convicted of murder.

Since then the joint enterprise law has been used to convict people in gang-related cases if defendants “could” have foreseen violent acts by their associates.

The February ruling came after a panel of five Supreme Court judges considered the case of Ameen Jogee, who had been convicted under joint enterprise of the murder of former Leicestershire police officer Paul Fyfe in 2011.

The court heard that Jogee had “egged on” his friend Mohammed Hirsi, who stabbed Mr Fyfe in the heart. Both men received life sentences for murder.

Jogee had argued he was not inside the house when the incident took place, and could not have foreseen what his friend intended to do.

Delivering the judgement, Lord Neuberger said it was wrong to treat “foresight” as a sufficient test to convict someone of murder.

He said: “The court is satisfied after a much fuller review of the law than in the earlier cases that the courts took a wrong turn in 1984. And it is the responsibility of this court to put the law right.”

Nigel Brown, one of two men convicted of the murder of 15-year old Belfast schoolboy Thomas Devlin in 2005 is among the appellants as is Mark Kincaid, one of three men found guilty of murdering hospital porter David Hamilton who was beaten to death in east Belfast in 2004.

The other appellants are: Barry Skinner, convicted for his role in the murder of Alexander McKinley who was shot in the head in east Belfast in 2002; Peter Greer, convicted of murdering Duncan Morrison and the attempted murder of Stephen Ritchie in a shooting in Bangor in 2011; Stephen McCaughey, convicted for his part in the killing of Philip Strickland who was shot near Comber in 2012 and Brenda Meehan, originally convicted of murdering Jim McFadden who was beaten to death in Londonderry in 2007 (In 2011, her conviction was reduced to manslaughter.)

The three Court of Appeal judges heard preliminary arguments on Wednesday as to whether they had jurisdiction to hear the cases, or if they should be sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which examines potential miscarriages of justice.

Judgment was reserved on the preliminary point on jurisdiction.