The sharpest intervention yet by the solicitors’ body comes shortly after the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, criticised the government’s proposals as incompatible with international human rights law.

Rowan White, president of the Law Society, will urge the UK government to abandon its plans when he addresses an invited audience at the Law Society’s Council dinner this evening.

“Solicitors have a vital role in supporting victims and survivors across all communities to access justice in relation to events that happened during the Troubles in Northern Ireland,” he will say.

“The Law Society of Northern Ireland, which represents all of Northern Ireland’s solicitors, notes with concern the proposals recently published by the United Kingdom government in their paper, Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past.

“The Society considers that these proposals contravene the United Kingdom’s duty under the European Convention on Human Rights to hold independent and effective investigations into the deaths that occurred during the Troubles.”

He will finish: “The Law Society calls upon the United Kingdom government to uphold the rule of law, to act in compliance with its duty under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, all other national and international obligations, and to reconsider its recent proposals.”

Ms Mijatović, in a letter to Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis, said the government’s proposed approach “is based on a false dichotomy between investigations and prosecutions on the one hand, and truth and reconciliation on the other, as well as on problematic assumptions about how these interact”.

She said: “In addition to being an international legal obligation, fighting impunity through criminal justice is one of the well-established pillars of transitional justice.

“Virtually every effective transitional justice effort to date has relied on elements of both criminal justice and truth and reconciliation. Conversely, impunity and the absence of justice can be a major impediment to achieving lasting peace and reconciliation.”