Human rights laws‘will have little impact’

THE Government’s approach to human rights protection has been dictated by the fears of anti-abortionists, a leading human rights lawyer said yesterday.

Pro-life figures are worried about European rights intruding into the country and human rights laws will subsequently have little impact, according to Dr Austen Morgan.

“I believe this is misguided. As a result, the Bill will have little effect. Constitutional protectionism in an age of shared sovereignty is not possible even if it remains desirable,” he said.

Speaking at the Oireachtas justice committee on the European Convention on Human Rights Bill, the London based lawyer said the bill was effectively forced upon the Government by the Good Friday Agreement.

“But I think the architecture has been wrong. I think there has been a public panic about rights coming in from abroad. The serious issue for the Irish government is going to the Charter for Fundamental Rights,” he said.

The view that the Human Rights Bill would have little impact was supported by various other lobby groups.

The disappointing new law is minimalist in its approach and fails to provide truly effective remedies for breaches of the convention, the Irish Refugee Council said.

The law will force individuals to continue to make applications to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg when the Irish courts say that rights have not been breached. But this process is lengthy and time consuming and it is unsatisfactory that people will have to continue to go down this path, the council said.

“For asylum seekers who are prohibited from working, and who only receive 19.10 per week, it is highly unlikely that they will have the means to be able to pursue such a case,” the council said.

Going through the courts places an added burden on people, according to the Irish Traveller Movement.

ITM spokesman David Joyce said it he had practical concerns about how minimal the bill was in reality. Travellers will continue to have to be in opposition to local authorities, he said.

“We feel how this bill is incorporating the convention is not useful,” Mr Joyce said.

Disability support groups were also critical of the bill. The Rehab Group said that the method of incorporating the Convention into Irish law falls far short of the ideal.

Fundamental to this method was the presumption that domestic law can be relied on to protect the individual, with the Convention in the background, Rehab said in its submission.

“It does not place the standards which Ireland agreed internationally at the centre of our human rights policy, but pays lip service to its ideals. Why should Ireland be afraid to strive to attain the ideal standard for the protection of Human Rights, and to become a model of best practice? This measure certainly will not achieve that,” the group said.