RECENTLY RETIRED secretary general of the Department of Justice Seán Aylward is one of the Government’s three nominees for the Irish seat on the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture, The Irish Times has learned.
The other nominees are academics Donncha O’Connell of NUI Galway and Dr Mary Rogan of Dublin Institute of Technology. For the first time in Ireland expressions of interest were sought last August when the Irish seat on the committee became vacant.
Suitably qualified people were sought through public advertisement, based on the legal requirement that members “shall be chosen from among persons of high moral character, known for their competence in the field of human rights or having professional experience in the areas covered by the convention . . . The members shall serve in their individual capacity, shall be independent and impartial and shall be available to serve the committee effectively.”
Forty-eight expressions of interest were received, and selection was based on applications and CVs. The term of office is four years and a member can serve two terms. The committee is a highly respected body that visits places of detention in the member states of the Council of Europe, including not only prisons but also police stations and psychiatric hospitals. The committee members report on their findings, initially to the member state’s government, and reports are usually later made public.
Mr Aylward was head of the prison service in Ireland prior to his appointment as secretary general of the Department of Justice, from which he retired last July after seven years in the job. Because he retired this year rather than next, he will be eligible for a full pension of half his salary of €214,187 and a lump sum of €321,280. Mr O’Connell is a lecturer in law in NUI Galway, where he teaches constitutional law and European human rights law, and was dean of the law faculty there from 2005 until 2008. He is the Irish member of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Human Rights and former director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
Dr Rogan lectures in socio-legal studies in DIT, where she also lectures on prison policy for the MA in criminology. She holds a PhD on Irish prison policy and is the author of a book on the subject. She is chairwoman of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
The list will be considered by the subcommittee on human rights of the council’s committee on legal affairs and human rights on October 5th next. This will report back to its parent committee, which will submit a report to a human rights group of parliamentarians and ultimately to the committee of ministers’ deputies, which will decide on which of the three should be appointed to the Irish seat. This is likely to be decided in November at the earliest.
The place on the Council of Europe committee carries a payment for each day a member attends, and there are 40 working days a year. Per diem rates vary according to the country, with Ireland having the fourth-highest rate among the 47 members, at €254 a day. Only those attending from the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden are paid more. A member attending all working days will earn €10,160.