The widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has written to all senior judges in Britain urging them not to sit on an inquiry into her husband's killing.
Geraldine Finucane wrote to every senior judge in England, Scotland and Wales expressing her concerns about the new Inquiries Act.
Despite having been pressing for a public inquiry for years, Mrs Finucane believes the terms of the act could prevent the truth of her husband's murder in 1989 - and allegations of security force collusion with the loyalist paramilitaries responsible -from coming out.
Public inquiries into the murders of Mr Finucane and three other people were recommended by retired Canadian High Court Judge Peter Cory in 2002 after he carried out investigations for the British and Irish Governments into allegations of collusion.
He said there was strong evidence of collusion that merited public inquiries. Since the Government enacted the Inquiries Act, both Judge Cory and Lord Saville of Newdigate - who conducted the long-running Bloody Sunday Inquiry and is yet to report - have indicated they would not be prepared to sit on any inquiry set up under the act.
In her letters Mrs Finucane said: "In view of these considerations I write to request that, if approached to serve on an Inquiries Act inquiry into my husband's murder, you, like Lord Saville and Judge Cory refuse to accept such an appointment."
She said that despite undertakings given by the British government in Parliament to implement the Cory recommendation in full, the government had now enacted the Inquiries Act 2005. "The provisions of that Act clearly fall far short of the Cory recommendations," she said.
Mrs Finucane quoted Judge Cory saying: "It seems to me that the proposed new Act would make a meaningful inquiry impossible. The Commissioners would be working in an impossible situation."