Today's resignations by two founding members of the North's Human Rights Commission over concerns at the body's failures, have been met with surprise and criticism of the British government.
Inez McCormack, regional secretary of the Unison union in the province, and Professor Christine Bell, professor of public international law at the University of Ulster, wrote to Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid tendering their resignations with immediate effect.
They both expressed their long-standing concerns at the failure of the Commission to effectively promote and protect human rights as mandated by the Good Friday Agreement.
The Commission was set up in 1999, a year after the signing of the Agreement, with the aim of ensuring the human rights of everyone were fully and firmly protected in law, policy and practice. Both women had been due to serve until March 2004.
Ms McCormack said when the Commission was established it was obvious to her it was not provided with the powers or the resources to meet the requirements set out in international standards for human rights commissions on independence and effective action.
However, she said, she had felt it could still achieve clear objectives in promoting and protecting human rights. "I have now been concerned for some considerable time that what I see as a lack of direction in the strategies , policies and practices of the Commission, means that it cannot," she said.
Ms McCormack said she had, within the Commission, expressed her "profound disagreement with several aspects of policy and practice".
In her letter of resignation to Dr Reid she expressed particular concern over the Commission's efforts to produce a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Such a Bill was something she had campaigned for for more than 30 years and believed could help make real the ethos of mutual respect that underlined the Agreement.
She said the Commission was going about creating a Bill of Rights the wrong way.
"Political parties and civil society are just at the beginning of an exploration on how best to engage in a debate on a Bill of Rights. "This difficult, serious process needs time and space. The Commission however, in my view, still is pursuing an approach to this debate that risks polarising it and rushing it, thereby closing its potential as a process that can assist in building peace," she said.
Professor Bell wrote in similar vein saying she was going because the powers and resources given to the Commission were inadequate to its task, compromising its independence and effectiveness.
"The government's tardy consultation document responding to the Commission's recommendations is essentially dismissive and this does not augur well for the future of the Commission, " she said.
The professor said she had been concerned for some time whether the Commission, even within its limited powers and resources, was "developing a sufficiently strategic and organised approach to enable it to carve out a positive role for itself in protecting and promoting human rights."
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said the British government had "every confidence" the HRC would continue its vital role of protecting and promoting the rights of all the people of Northern Ireland.
And Chief Commissioner Professor Brice Dickson said he was surprised at the resignations. He admitted he was aware of "minor disagreements" but did not think they were resigning matters.
Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said the resignation of Ms McCormack and Professor Bell raised "fundamental doubts" about whether the Commission, as currently constituted, was the independent human rights advocate it was intended to be under the Good Friday Agreement.
Evidently there were serious difficulties within the Commission, which Sinn Fein had on several occasions raised with the Commission itself and the Government.
Mr McLaughlin added: "It should therefore be a matter of urgent concern to the British and Irish governments that these legitimate grievances are honestly and speedily addressed if public confidence is to be restored."
PA