AS NORTHERN Ireland quangos go, none has been more divisive, pointless, and wasteful than the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission; and that's saying something, given the size and self-indulgent nature of Northern quangoland, writes DAVID ADAMS
Created in 1999, the commission’s remit included drafting proposals for a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights as outlined in the Belfast Agreement. From the outset, unionists questioned the need for such a Bill, pointing to the range of protections already in place under the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Human Rights Act that came into force in 2000.
All their objections were dismissed as evidence of unionist opposition to the basic concept of human rights. The commission ploughed on regardless, under the unwavering direction of its then chairman Prof Brice Dickson – continuing to lecture, hector, “take soundings”, and generally divide public and political opinion.
After a few years, however, disagreements began to surface within the commission. Seven commissioners left over a two-year period between 2002 and 2004. And in 2005, Dickson resigned.
He was replaced by Monica McWilliams, and a new complement of commissioners was appointed. Nothing much changed, though.
The commission simply delegated the job of pulling together an initial set of proposals to a new subsidiary quango, the Forum for a Bill of Rights.
In December 2008, almost 10 years after its inception, the commission finally delivered its recommendations to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. And what a set of recommendations it produced.
For its attention to the minutiae of everyday life – and the promises held out to ordinary citizens of a future existence almost entirely free from personal responsibility and care – it would work wonderfully well as a political manifesto, albeit a wholly undeliverable one.
But as the basis for a Bill of Rights, it’s a complete disaster. As a small flavour: according to the commission such things as work, housing, clothing, heating, healthcare, education, and the like, should be elevated to legally enforceable, absolute entitlements.
If such “statutory advice” were ever to make it into law, litigants and lawyers would have a field day.
The judicial system in Northern Ireland would eventually become so overburdened, it would in all probability grind to a halt within six months, only to be followed shortly thereafter by the Executive. Still, the recommendations were no surprise. Goodness knows, over the last decade there were enough pointers to where the commission was headed, and to what kind of pie-in-the-sky rubbish it would finally produce.
In fairness, it should be noted that, despite two unionist commissioners dissenting from its final report, the commission claims to have majority support for its proposals across the two main communities in Northern Ireland.
For accuracy, it should be pointed out that this claim is based on a survey of 1,001 people.
The major shock lies not in the report, but in the reaction to it of Dickson. Amazingly, after lecturing for almost 10 years on the absolute necessity of a Human Rights Bill specifically tailored to meet the needs of Northern Ireland, Dickson now concedes that such a Bill isn’t required after all.
In a recent submission to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights he opined: “It’s just that I do not think the Bill of Rights needs to be of the ‘all singing, all dancing’ variety that has been argued for by the commission up to now.”
That’s a bit rich, coming from the person who did most of the arguing in support of just such an “all singing, all dancing” construction. Moreover, it was he who initially plotted what course the commission should take, and helped decide the extensive range of issues it should concern itself with.
Dickson now says that human rights can be adequately protected by the British Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights “without there being a Bill of Rights in place” because “ordinary legislation can do the job just as well”.
These are precisely the points that have repeatedly been made by unionists over the past decade. Still, Dickson stopped far short of acknowledging that particular truth.
In fact, displaying a startling lack of self-awareness, he said of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP): “I had the impression that very few in the Ulster Unionist Party understood enough about the issues involved to be able to present a coherent position to the commission.”
The unavoidable logic of Dickson’s own submission is that the UUP knew enough to be right all along. The only thing more remarkable than Dickson’s public disavowal of everything that he argued for has been the Northern media’s almost complete lack of interest in his volte-face. It has barely been mentioned. This is particularly amazing when you consider that every other twist and turn concerning the commission has been reported extensively and largely uncritically by the media – this included giving a welcome to its proposals for a Bill of Rights last December.
Come to think of it, maybe the lack of interest isn’t so amazing after all.