Issues such as the policing of the Holy Cross school protest have caused disputes, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
When the UK Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights published its report into the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission earlier this month, it brought into the public domain internal disputes on issues like the policing of the protest outside the Holy Cross school and the nature of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.
This followed the resignations of three commissioners over the past nine months. Late last year Dr Inez McCormack, former president of the ICTU, and Prof Christine Bell, an expert in human rights law, both resigned. They cited a lack of strategic direction and management, and the work on the ongoing project of proposing a draft Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.
Their resignations were followed on July 8th by that of Mr Patrick Yu, a prominent member of the Council for Ethnic Minorities, who alleged that the work of the commission threatened existing human rights and equality protections, and undermined aspects of the Belfast Agreement.
On July 15th the UK Joint Parliamentary Committee published its report. It had sought submissions from Dr McCormack and Prof Bell, and had received written submissions from a number of groups and individuals, including solicitors Madden and Finucane, which it published along with the report.
Madden and Finucane are solicitors with a large human rights practice, and one of their clients had sought funding for a case from the NIHRC. This was a parent of one of the children at Holy Cross primary school, where the schoolgirls attending the school had been subjected to a barrage of abuse from loyalists, including the throwing of a blast bomb, in 2001.
The case was being taken against the then chief constable of the RUC, alleging that the children's rights were not adequately protected by the police during the protest. Issues like the distance between protesters and the children and their parents, and whether or not barricades should have been put up, were involved.
The case has yet to come to court. Central to it will be the argument that the fact that children were being subjected to racist and sexist attack altered the situation from being one of keeping apart warring groups, to one where the children's rights to freedom from such treatment were paramount.
The state is likely to argue that the police did all they could to protect the children and keep the two sides apart, in the light of the obligation to balance the children's rights with the right to protest, and citing experience gained in the Garvaghy and Ormeau Road protests.
It is perhaps inevitable that any issue questioning the role of the police in Northern Ireland is politically sensitive, and when the request for funding for the case came in to the commission, brought by an individual under the Human Rights Act, it was indeed a controversial one.
The request came before the case-work committee of the commission, chaired by its chief commissioner, Prof Brice Dickson, and was agreed, though he dissented.
However, in subsequent correspondence with the then chief constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, Prof Dickson said he personally, along with three other commissioners, did not agree with the decision, and that the commission would be reconsidering its involvement with the litigation at another meeting. The applicant was not aware of this correspondence.
This whole matter was gone into in some detail by Madden and Finucane in their submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
They were highly critical of the actions of the chief commissioner, which, they said, compromised the position of their client, who was formally in receipt of support from the NIHRC. When their submission was published it generated considerable comment in Northern Ireland, and the leader of the SDLP, Mr Mark Durkan, has sought a meeting with Prof Dickson.
In a statement last week Prof Dickson said he had done what he thought was right at the time, in view of the deep divisions within the commission. He added that, looking back, he might have dealt with the matter differently. He also said he would be happy to meet Mr Durkan. The UK Joint Parliamentary Committee also expressed its concern about the actions of both the chief constable and the chief commissioner.
The other issue that has proved contentious is the commission's campaign for a Bill of Rights. It is given a role in this by the Belfast Agreement, and embarked on a consultation process a year ago. However, the enthusiasm for this project among politicians in general, and unionist politicians in particular, is lukewarm, to say the least.
The draft bill it has produced has also been heavily criticised, including from within the commission itself. These criticisms have centred on the claim that the formulations used, notably "community" rather than "minority", could minimise the structural inequalities that exist in Northern Ireland society, and, if enacted, threaten to make the protection of minorities more difficult. This was the basis of Mr Yu's resignation, and was also of concern to Dr McCormack and Prof Bell.
While welcoming many of the future plans of the NIHRC, the Joint Parliamentary Committee urges further debate on the controversial "community rights" phrase in the draft bill, and urged the institution of a new process.
So far the Irish Government has been discreet about the problems of the NIHRC. Mr Cowen expressed his "serious concern" at the resignation of Mr Yu, but has made no comment on the report of the UK Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Nonetheless, the Government is one of the guarantors of the institutions set up by the Belfast Agreement. Part of the NIHRC's mandate is to establish a joint committee with the Human Rights Commission in this State, and this will have difficulty in functioning if a shadow lies over the Northern body.
At the moment it is one of the few institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement still in operation, and its internal woes must be viewed with concern.