The proposed Human Rights Commission will have the power to carry out its own investigations into suspected abuses, including summoning witnesses and making discovery orders, according to draft legislation published yesterday
The Human Rights Commission Bill (1999) provides that the new body - one of the State`s obligations under the Belfast Agreement - will be able to take legal proceedings, or support others in doing so. It will also participate in a joint forum with representatives of the equivalent body in Northern Ireland to consider human rights issues on the island as a whole.
Publishing the Bill, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue, said the commission would have "wideranging jurisdiction in the area of human rights and fundamental freedoms". The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said the body could usher in a "whole new era of protection for human rights" but would have "plenty of work to do" in Ireland.
The draft legislation provides that the commission will have nine permanent members, including a president, to be appointed by, but acting independently of, Government. Current members of either house of the Oireachtas or the European Parliament would be disqualified, but the president could be a serving judge in the High or Supreme courts.
The Bill defines human rights as "the rights, liberties and freedoms conferred on, or guaranteed to, persons by the Constitution and the rights, liberties or freedoms conferred on, or guaranteed to, persons by any agreement, treaty or convention to which the State is party".
Mr O'Donoghue said the proposal that the commission be able to summon witnesses and demand production of documents was not specifically required by the Belfast Agreement but had been included because "the key issue is the extent to which the commission can exercise its functions under the Bill as effectively as possible".
The ICCL predicted that, working closely with its Northern counterpart, the new body could help "establish a culture of human rights throughout the whole island of Ireland, and a common platform of rights that could be enforced in the same way from Antrim to Kerry".
The commission could play a leading role "in combating prejudice and racism against refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as against indigenous minorities such as Travellers". It should work with the Northern Ireland commission to bring an end to emergency laws and special courts North and South; and it could also raise awareness of the conditions of the mentally ill, the homeless and people with disabilities.
However, the ICCL also voiced concerns about the Bill, particularly the suggestion that the commission's president could be a judge. To win the confidence of the deprived and marginalised, the new body "should be headed by someone who has worked with those communities," it said.
Labour welcomed the Bill and promised to table amendments aimed at strengthening it.
The party's justice spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, said that if the commission was to be seen as genuinely independent, its membership should not "be left totally to the whim of whatever government is in power". Instead, governments should be required to draw members from nominations made by a range of bodies.
He also criticised the Government for not incorporating directly key agreements like the European Convention on Human Rights. "Virtually every other European country has now incorporated the convention into domestic law," he said.
