UN to question Government on 'renditions'

The Government will be asked by a UN committee tomorrow to justify its failure to act on “extraordinary rendition” and to legislate in the areas of abortion, transgender identity, non-traditional families and freedom of religion in schools.

It will also be asked to justify its policies on the summary deportation of certain foreign nationals, the continued use of “slopping out” in prisons and the imprisonment of debtors.

The questions are raised in a “Shadow Report” to the United Nations Committee on Civil and Political Rights, to which the Government is presenting its five-year report on the state of human rights in Ireland in Geneva today.

Three organisations, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, FLAC and the Irish Penal Reform Trust, collaborated in preparing the Shadow Report to assist the UN committee in questioning the Government on its record.

They published this report in Dublin today, and it was launched by Judge Michael Kirby, the longest-serving judge on the High Court of Australia (its Supreme Court).

The UN Committee on Civil and Political Rights is the monitoring body for the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Ireland ratified in 1989.

The committee asks signatory states to prepare reports on the implementation of the covenant, and such reports are submitted every five years. The states are then questioned on them, and human rights NGOs are asked to prepare “shadow reports” to assist in this.

The shadow report asks the Government why it has not legislated to incorporate the covenant into Irish law, including a provision asking the courts to take account of its rulings.

It also draws attention to the continued use of slopping out in Irish prisons, the planned summary deportation of people found not to be in possession of documents entitling them to be in Ireland without any allowance for explanation, the lack of availability of non-faith schools and the imprisonment of people for debt.