One of the central institutions set up in Northern Ireland by the Belfast Agreement has admitted mistakes were made in its handling of an issue that split the community two years ago.
The admission comes at a time when the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) is facing criticism on several fronts, including from the SDLP and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mr Cowen, has expressed "serious concern" over the recent resignation of one of its members, Mr Patrick Yu.
In a statement the chief commissioner of the NIHCR, Prof Brice Dickson, has admitted he made mistakes in his handling of a case arising from protests at the Holy Cross school, when loyalists attacked school-girls.
However, he told the Irish News yesterday he has no plans to resign.
Details of the dispute over the issue in the NIHRC emerged with the publication last week of a report on the body from the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
A number of submissions were published with the report, including one from lawyers representing a parent at the school who sought to take a case against the RUC, and one from two commissioners who resigned late last year, Dr Inez McCormack and Prof Christine Bell.
The parent of one of the schoolgirls decided to take a case claiming the RUC's handling of the protest breached the child's human rights under the Human Rights Act. The commission had considered taking such a case but decided against it.
The parent then approached the commission, asking it to financially support the case. One remit of the NIHCR is the support of individual cases relating to fundamental human rights issues. The casework sub-committee decided the case should be supported, and the full commission endorsed this. However, a number of commissioners, particularly those from a unionist background, were unhappy with this decision.
Prof Dickson then wrote to the then Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, stating his personal opposition to the decision, and stating: "I myself am strongly of the view that the policing of the protest at the Holy Cross school has not been in breach of the Human Rights Act."
Some months later Mr Flanagan wrote back to Prof Dickson, saying that his lawyers were anxious to produce his letter in court. Following this letter, Prof Dickson proposed the commission withdraw funding from the case on financial grounds.
In his statement issued this week, Prof Dickson said: "In expressing reservations about the merits of this case on behalf of myself and three fellow commissioners I did what I felt was right at the time in view of the deep divisions which had surfaced within the commission.
"Looking back on the matter a year and a half later, I might have dealt with those divisions differently."
The statement from the commission also reiterated its commitment to drafting a Bill of Rights that would build on the Belfast Agreement and existing human rights.
This is a clear response to the letter of resignation of Mr Yu, a prominent member of the Council for Ethnic Minorities, which said that the commission had adopted a position that undermined the Belfast Agreement.