The British and Irish Governments were today urged to sponsor a process between all political parties to bring forward the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.
The head of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Professor Monica McWilliams, told The Irish Times her organisation gave its advice on the Bill of Rights in December 2008. It has not yet received a response from the Northern Ireland parties or the Executive.
She was speaking after opening a conference on the 10th anniversary of the Human Rights Act in Belfast.
The preparation of a Bill of Rights arose from the Belfast Agreement, which was registered as an international agreement with the United Nations.
Prof McWilliams warned that the “parking” of the Bill of Rights project by the proposal from the Conservative Party that it be added to its proposals for a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities could be seen as an infringement of this international treaty.
The party pledged in its election campaign to repeal the UK Human Rights, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
Prof McWilliams said Tory leader David Cameron indicated when he visited the North before the election campaign that he favoured this outcome to the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights process.
She told the conference a commission to discuss the future of human rights in the UK is to be established in 2011. This would lead to a process of deliberation, consultation and legislation likely to last for three years, meaning it was unlikely to be legislated in the lifetime of the current government.
“Any debate on human rights in the UK cannot ignore the Northern Ireland question nor will it make progress until that question is settled,” she said.
Shami Chakrabarthi of the UK human rights organisation Liberty said that the debate about the Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland was always different from the discussion in the UK about the Human Rights Act. “The elephant in the room at the heart of the debate in the UK is the policy of deporting foreign nationals to places of torture,” she said.
The Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC, told the conference that in the area of human rights there was an unfortunate tendency to claim all wisdom for international human rights institutions, “amounting almost to idolatry.” The decisions of these international organisations and tribunals should be subjected to “tough-minded assessment.”