UK government accused of 'alarming failures' on human rights

The British government’s record on human rights came under fierce attack from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission at a major international conference today.

UK Chief Commissioner Professor Brice Dickson said it was regrettable that, while in some respects there had been positive progress in establishing systems to protect human rights in Northern Ireland, there had been “alarming failures” by government to introduce measures to address “critical problems”.

Professor Dickson used the 60th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to accuse the government of failing to support the Commission itself.

He said the government had “badly failed to support” the Commission over the past 12 months.

More than three years after it submitted a report – required by law – making a case for increased powers for the Commission, the Government had still not definitively responded.

“Thus, contrary to what is required by the UN’s Paris Principles, my Commission still has no power to compel anyone to provide it with information,” he said.

The government had also failed to appoint new members to the Commission to replace those who, for a variety of reasons, had left over the past 18 months.

“The refusal to fill the vacancies has reduced the expertise, resources and authority of the Commission, rendering it less effective than it otherwise might be,” said the professor.

He accused the government of failing to defend the independence and expertise of the Commission “when we have been under unfair attack from politically motivated quarters, including from the Government of Ireland”.

The Commission was an important part of the peace process, said Professor Dickson. He hoped the UK government would soon give it the “respect, powers and resources it deserves”.

The most serious and systematic violations of human rights in Northern Ireland continued to be by paramilitary organisations, he reported.

During 2003 it was estimated there were 11 murders by paramilitary groups, 156 non-fatal shootings and 149 serious assaults, he said.

“Astonishingly the police and the prosecution services do not seem to record how many people are charged with such shootings and assaults,” he added.

The Commission remained disappointed that the British government had not yet put in place a system for preventing and investigating deaths which was fully compliant with international standards.

“There are still over 2,000 unsolved murders dating from before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Many of these have, in our view, not been effectively investigated,” said Professor Dickson.

Inquest system reform was long overdue, he said and the British government had not adequately responded to the right of many families to know the truth about how their loved ones died.

He said the Commission wanted to see the involvement of international experts in the public inquiries due to be held into allegations of state and security force collusion in loyalist murders following the recent publication of the Cory Reports.

The professor reported that there had been no deaths in police custody in Northern Ireland in the recent past, but he raised concerns about six deaths in prisons within the past two years.

It appeared they may all have been suicides, but the Commission was trying to determine whether the Prison Service was doing enough to prevent such deaths by providing good quality psychiatric care and examining whether the service had an adequate system for investigating such deaths.

In a further swipe at the UK government the professor said the Commission was “deeply disturbed” by the fact that when immigrants, including asylum applicants, were detained in Northern Ireland, they were held in a maximum security prison alongside convicted terrorists.

“The UK government has failed to give assurances that it will end this practice,” he said.

He added: “Nor has the government agreed to ratify the UN’s 1990 Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.

“There has also been a deplorable rise in racially-motivated violence in Northern Ireland.

“Most alarmingly, and contrary to clear commitments already announced, the UK government has recently declared that it will not, after all, be issuing a National Action Plan Against Racism.”