The British army's decision to retain the two soldiers convicted of murdering Peter McBride was described as "outrageous" and "racist" in the High Court in Belfast today.
"The decision is so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person could have arrived at it," said Mr Seamus Treacy, QC.
He said: "It is also fundamentally discriminatory and racist in character.It is clear beyond argument that the army treats the loss of Northern Irish lives less seriously than they treat the loss of other lives or indeed that they regard it as even less important than other much less serious matters, like possession of drugs, which carry automatic discharge."
He was opening a second application for judicial review of the army's decision last November not to discharge Scots Guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright.
They returned to their regiment in 1998 after being released on licence having serving six years of a life sentence for murdering McBride (19), who was shot in the back near his home in the New Lodge area of Belfast in 1992.
The latest case has again been brought by the victim's mother, Mrs Jean McBride, and is being heard by Mr Justice Kerr.He is the same judge who in 1999 quashed an earlier decision allowing the two soldiers to stay in the army.
Court papers lodged by Mrs McBride's solicitors, Madden and Finucane, stated that 2,002 soldiers have been discharged from the army in the past 10 years for lesser crimes than murder.
Mr Ian Burnett, QC, for the army, will address the judge tomorrow.