The drafting of a Bill of Rights for the North is one of the priorities of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which yesterday published a three-year draft strategic plan and launched a consultation period on its contents.
Prof Brice Dickson, the chief commissioner, said his 10-member body, which was established under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, intended to work to protect everyone. "We will be working for victims' rights, including victims of paramilitary violence over the last 30 years. We will be working to protect particularly vulnerable groups such as children, the disabled, the elderly, gays, lesbians, transsexuals and ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland," he said. The commission, which came into existence officially last March, aims to have the Bill of Rights drafted by the end of next year and wants the public to engage in the consultation process so the commission's work can be "relevant" to people's lives.
The commission will be promoting a "human rights culture" through education and aims to ensure all aspects of the criminal justice system and policing comply with internationally recognised human rights standards.
A response to the Patten Report on Policing and the imminent report of the Criminal Justice Review Group will also be formulated by measuring their respective sets of recommendations against internationally recognised standards of the protection of human rights.
The Alliance Party chief whip, Mr David Ford, yesterday welcomed the aims of the report. "I have confidence in a body which has produced a plan such as this," he said. The Human Rights Commission will liaise closely with the Equality Commission - also established under the Belfast Agreement - which officially came into existence yesterday.
The Fair Employment Agency (FEA), the Fair Employment Commission (FEC), the Commission for Racial Equality in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Disability Council are being replaced by the new anti-discrimination body.
Sir Robert Cooper, who retired yesterday as chairman of the FEA and the FEC, posts he held for 23 years, said at his last public engagement that much had been achieved, but that Catholics in Northern Ireland were still more likely to be unemployed.
He said when work began on equality in 1976, a lot of people thought there was nothing wrong with discrimination.
"One example of the dramatic and positive change which has taken place is the almost universal public acceptance that discrimination is wrong. Employers now, for the most part, accept their own responsibility for dealing with problems of inequality."