EU data transfer worth £85bn a year to the UK is at risk due to the ICO’s dismal record

This morning’s letter alerts the European Commission that frictionless UK-EU data transfer is impossible because of ICO problems.

This morning I alerted the European Commission its of its legal obligation to limit EU data transfers to the UK after Brexit, because of problems at the UK’s privacy watchdog failure to protect data rights.

Under the terms of Article 45 of the GDPR, and the Political Declaration between the EU and the UK, an “adequacy decision” for frictionless transfer of personal data from the UK to the EU is not possible, because of the dismal record of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Without an adequacy decision, £85bn of UK exports are in jeopardy because they rely on EU data.[1] This is 13% of the UK’s total, global exports. [2] For perspective, the UK’s fishing industry was worth only £0.75 bn. last year.[3]

The Brexit negotiations are approaching their end date, and are increasingly fraught. Several problems with data transfers have been apparent from the outset. Even so, the direction of travel until now has been toward an adequacy decision that would allow the UK to receive the personal data of people in the EU without any friction or ad hoc arrangements.

However, this morning’s letter confronts the European Commission with its duty to evaluate whether the ICO can be relied upon to protect European’s data rights. This duty is established in Article 45 of the GDPR.

The ICO’s failure to act on the RTB issue, which is the biggest data breach it has ever had reported to it, and the ICO’s other failings, mean it cannot satisfy the requirement set out in GDPR Article 45(2) for frictionless data transfers at present.

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Executive Vice-President Vestager
Commissioner Didier Reynders
Commissioner Thierry Breton
Rue de la Loi 200
1049 Brussels
Belgium

cc
Michel Barnier, Head of the Task Force for Relations with the UK
Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, Secretary General of the Council
David McAllister MEP, Chair of the Parliament’s EU-UK Coordination Group
Dr Andrea Jelinek, Chair of the European Data Protection Board

6 October 2020

Inadequacy of enforcement of personal data protection in the United Kingdom: grounds to refuse an “adequacy decision”

Dear Executive Vice President Vestager, Commissioner Reynders, and Commissioner Breton,

I write on behalf of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Ireland’s oldest independent human rights monitoring organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign for all human rights, for everyone. I write to draw your attention to a deficit in the protection of personal data in the United Kingdom, which must make an “adequacy decision” for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the UK impossible at the present time.

Under the terms of Article 45(2)b of the GDPR, an adequacy decision is impossible because the UK’s data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), does not met the test of an “effectively functioning” supervisory authority.

Failure to act against the largest GDPR infringement in the UK

The ICO has shown itself to be incapable of discharging the tasks required of a supervisory authority under Article 57 of the GDPR and section 115 of the UK Data Protection Act, with respect to the largest data breach of all time:[4] Real-Time Bidding (RTB).

The RTB system operates behind-the-scenes on virtually every website and app, and constantly broadcasts the private things that people do and watch online, and where they are in the real world, to countless companies. There is no way of limiting what then happens to these data.

The RTB data free-for-all infringes Article 5(1)f of the GDPR. Many RTB companies that process the personal data of data subjects in the Union are established in the UK.

In January 2018, I blew the whistle about RTB infringements to the ICO. I was then an executive at company in the RTB industry.[5] Then, in September 2018, the Executive Director of the Open Rights Group and an academic at the University of London filed a formal GDPR complaint to the ICO about RTB. This complaint was a duplicate of the complaint that I filed with the Irish Data Protection Commission on the same day.[6] Ten months after receiving the complaint, the ICO published a report validating our evidence of the enormous scale and severity of the RTB infringement.[7]

Even so, despite the fact that the enormity of the data protection infringements were publicly acknowledged by the ICO in its report, it did not take action to end the infringements. Instead, it accepted gestures from the infringers that did not limit or correct the infringements.[8] As a result, infringements of the GDPR by RTB companies established in the UK have increased in the years since the ICO was notified.[9]

The consequences of this should be of utmost concern to the European Commission, endangering the right to protection of personal data and going so far as to interfere in elections within the Union. For example, profile data leaked by the RTB system were used to profile LGBTQ+ people in Poland in order to influence the 2019 Parliamentary Election.[10]

The ICO has failed over the last two years to take any substantive action against the largest data breach that the UK and EU have ever experienced. It would be unreasonable to anticipate that it will perform any better after Brexit is complete.

The UK Government’s “explanatory framework”

In March 2020, the UK Government published “explanatory framework” documents that it claims “provide the information necessary for the Commission to plan and conduct its assessment”[11] for an adequacy decision.

The claims about the ICO in these documents merit further examination:

First, the UK Government suggests that the ICO is “capable of handling complex cases and imposing tough sanctions where necessary”, and points to the issuing of 13 monetary penalties since the application of the GDPR on 25 May 2020.[12] However, by September 2020 the ICO had actually issued only a single fine under the UK Data Protection Act that implements the GDPR,[13] though it had issued fines on matters outstanding under previous legislation. Indeed, the ICO has found itself unable to proceed with the major fines that it had announced under the GDPR.[14]

Second, the UK Government claims that the ICO is among the “three most active data protection authorities in recent years in terms of individual fining decisions”.[15] However, the citation on which this claim relies refers to a conference paper from 2017 that predates the GDPR, and which does not appear to substantiate the claim.[16]

Third, the UK Government writes that the ICO has a staff of approximately 750, a budget of €55.65 mil, and “world-leading expertise in niche areas such as the impact of new technologies and privacy rights”.[17] It further asserts that “almost all” of the ICO’s budget “supports data protection compliance”.[18] However, documents obtained under freedom of information show that the ICO had 680 full time equivalent staff, of which only 21 are specialist tech investigators. Moreover, only 8 people work in the ICO’s “Cyber incident response & investigation unit”.[19]

In other words, the ICO may be the biggest and most expensive supervisory authority to operate, but it is not configured to monitor and enforce data protection in the digital age. Indeed, only 1 per cent of its staff is devoted to this purpose.

An adequacy decision for the UK

The document in which the UK Government presents the ICO as an asset in its case for an adequacy decision is almost entirely devoted to describing the legal framework that provides the ICO’s investigative and enforcement powers. There is very little space given to discussing the ICO’s actual performance.[20] Irrespective of the fact that the UK has integrated the EU acquis into its national law, the mere fact that a supervisory authority exists in name does not mean that the rights of data subjects in the Union will be protected in practice. As Article 45(2) observes, both the “the existence and effective functioning” of a third country’s supervisory should be considered when evaluating that country’s adequacy.

Failure to secure an adequacy decision from the European Commission would introduce friction and uncertainty to EU-UK data transfers that could jeopardise 13% of the UK’s global exports. The UK Government reports that UK exports of “personal data-enabled services” to the EU accounted for £85bn in 2018.[21] The UK’s total global exports in the same year were £655.5bn.[22] For perspective, the entire UK fishing industry had a GDP of only £0.75 bn last year.[23] The stakes are therefore very high for the UK.

However, both the UK and the EU recognised in their Political Declaration that it would be impossible for the European Commission to adopt an adequacy decision unless “the applicable conditions are met”.[24] EU data protection law is clear about what these conditions are. Article 45(2) of the GDPR provides that “the Commission shall, in particular, take account of … the existence and effective functioning of one or more independent supervisory authorities” when determining whether a third country should be the subject of an adequacy decision.

The UK lacks an effective independent supervisory authority that is capable of enforcing compliance with data protection law and vindicating data subjects’ rights. As a consequence, the personal data of data subjects in the Union do not at present have an adequate level of protection in the UK. Therefore, we suggest to you that the inescapable conclusion is that the UK must be unable to benefit from an adequacy decision at the present time.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Johnny Ryan FRHistS
Senior Fellow of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties
Senior Fellow of the Open Markets Institute

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Notes

[1] “Explanatory Framework for Adequacy Discussions”, section A, UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 13 March 2020, p. 1.[2] “Statistics on UK-EU trade”, Briefing Paper No. 7851, House of Commons, 17 June 2020 (URL: http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf).[3] “UK Sea Fisheries Statistics 2019”, UK Marine Management Organisation (URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920679/UK_Sea_Fisheries_Statistics_2019_-_access_checked-002.pdf), p. 55.[4] See RTB scale in 2018-19 at https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Scale-billions-of-bid-requests-per-day-RAN2019061811075588.pdf.[5] See chronology of ICO failure in “Surveillance on UK council websites”, Brave, 4 February 2020 (URL: https://brave.com/ukcouncilsreport/), p. 8.[6] “Grounds of complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner”, Ravi Naik acting for Johnny Ryan, 12 September 2018 (URL: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DPC-Complaint-Grounds-12-Sept-2018-RAN2018091217315865-1.pdf).[7] “Update report into adtech and real time bidding”, ICO, 20 June 2019 (URL: https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/documents/2615156/adtech-real-time-bidding-report-201906.pdf), p. 20-23.[8] “Adtech – the reform of real time bidding has started and will continue”, ICO, 17 January 2020 (URL: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2020/01/blog-adtech-the-reform-of-real-time-bidding-has-started/).[9] For example, “IndexExchange”, a large RTB company that has an establishment in London, today sends 120 billion broadcasts about people’s online behaviour per day, whereas at the time of the complaint in 2018 it sent 50 billion such broadcasts. See source in footnote 2.[10] “New data on the RTB privacy crisis: people with AIDS profiled in Ireland, and Polish elections influenced”, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, 21 September 2020 (URL: https://www.iccl.ie/human-rights/info-privacy/rtb-data-breach-2-years-on/).[11] “Explanatory Framework for Adequacy Discussions”, section A, UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 13 March 2020 (URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/872228/A_-_Cover_Note.pdf), p. 1.[12] “Explanatory Framework for Adequacy Discussions”, section A, p. 2.[13] “Penalty Notice to Doorstep Dispensaree Ltd.”, ICO, 20 December 2019 (URL: https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/mpns/2616742/doorstop-mpn-20191217.pdf).[14] See “Intention to fine British Airways £183.39m under GDPR for data breach”, ICO, 8 July 2019; and “Intention to fine Marriott International, Inc more than £99 million under GDPR for data breach”, ICO, 9 July 2019 (URL: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/).[15] “Explanatory Framework for Adequacy Discussions”, section A, pp 2-3, and section G, p. 3.[16] “Fines under the GDPR”, CPDP 2017 Conference Book (URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3270535).[17] “Explanatory Framework for Adequacy Discussions”, section A, p. 3; and section G, p. 1.[18] ibid., p. 1.[19] See detail in “Europe’s governments are failing the GDPR: 2020 report on the enforcement capacity of data protection authorities”, Brave, April 2020 (URL: https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Brave-2020-DPA-Report.pdf).[20] “Explanatory Framework”, section G.[21] “Explanatory Framework”, section A, p. 1.[22] “Statistics on UK-EU trade”, Briefing Paper No. 7851, House of Commons, 17 June 2020 (URL: http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf).[23] “UK Sea Fisheries Statistics 2019”, UK Marine Management Organisation, (URL: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920679/UK_Sea_Fisheries_Statistics_2019_-_access_checked-002.pdf), p. 55.[24] “Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom”, 17 October 2019, paragraph 9.

European Commission urged to limit personal data transfers to UK after Brexit

12 October 2020

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has written to the European Commission alerting its of its legal obligation to limit EU data transfers to the UK after Brexit, because of problems at the UK’s privacy watchdog failure to protect data rights.

Adding to the tension in the Brexit negotiations, £85 bn of UK digital exports to the EU will now be at risk.

Dr Johnny Ryan, ICCL Senior Fellow, said:

“13% of the UK’s global trade relies on using EU personal data. This is now in jeopardy because of the dismal record of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to enforce the GDPR and protect our rights. The European Commission’s hands are tied by the law, and it cannot allow the UK to enjoy frictionless data transfers after Brexit until it is safe for our data to be processed in the UK.”

The ICCL letter is also copied to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, and other senior EU figures. Negotiations are increasingly fraught after the ninth round and this issue will highlight yet again how interwoven the UK and EU are, and how complicated and arduous unpicking that will continue to be.

Download letter (PDF)

The UK ICO has failed to act on the largest data breach ever reported to it: “Real-Time Bidding” (RTB). RTB operates behind-the-scenes on virtually every website and app, and constantly broadcasts the private things that people do and watch online, and where they are in the real world, to countless companies. There is no way of limiting what then happens to these data, as illustrated by the ICCL’s recent evidence that RTB data was used to profile 1.4 million LGBTQ people in Poland in order to influence the Polish Parliamentary Elections last year.

Dr Ryan blew the whistle to the ICO about the RTB crisis in January 2018, when he was employed in an RTB company. Despite confirming the scale of the problem, the ICO took no action. It has also failed to deliver on other major enforcement actions.

ENDS/

Notes for editors:

Find out more about Real Time Bidding here: https://www.iccl.ie/what-is-real-time-bidding/

Read the letter to the European Commission here: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Letter-Brexit-Commission-data-ICO-12Oct2020.pdf

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights monitoring organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign for all human rights for everyone.

For comment: Dr Johnny Ryan

For media enquiries Sinéad Nolan:sinead.nolan@iccl.ie

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Equality complaint made against Translink for facilitating discriminatory passport checks on cross-border buses

Belfast/Dublin, 17 September 2019

The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) has submitted a breach of equality scheme complaint against Translink in response to the company facilitating discriminatory passport checks on its cross-border transport services. The complaint has been made by CAJ on behalf of 17 directly affected passengers.

In addition to submitting the equality scheme complaint to Translink, CAJ has also joined with its sister organisation, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), in writing to the Garda Commissioner, the Policing Authority, and the Irish government’s Minister for Justice and Equality to draw attention to its concerns about the discriminatory manner in which the passport checks are being carried out by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (10).

Over recent months, concern has been building over the increasing number of passport and identity checks being carried out on cross-border transport routes within the Common Travel Area (CTA).

Officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau (1) have resumed practices of stopping and boarding buses crossing the land border to conduct passport checks. Meanwhile, UK Home Office Immigration Officers have been conducting similar checks on passengers disembarking cross-border bus services or arriving at seaports and airports in Northern Ireland.

Witness and victim testimony indicates that these checks are frequently conducted on the basis of (at times quite blatant) racial profiling – the form of racial discrimination where persons are singled out on the basis of skin colour or other ethnic attributes.

The checks are contrary to both UK and Irish law, and stated government policy. UK law explicitly precludes passport checks being conducted within the CTA (2) and UK government ministers have given clear assurances that no such checks are to start taking place (3).

The Irish government has given similar assurances that it will not introduce a ‘hard border’ on the island of Ireland as a result of Brexit. Under current Irish Law (4), some persons are required to carry and produce passports when crossing the Irish land border, but this does not apply to Irish citizens or other EU citizens (5). However, there is no way of telling the difference between those who are subject to such duties and those who are not.

Úna Boyd, CAJ’s Immigration Project Coordinator, commented,

“It seems that the hard border already exists for those who are targeted due to factors such as their skin colour or accent. The facilitation of passport controls on the island of Ireland also aids in introducing an element of a hard border at a time when a ‘no-deal’ Brexit seems possible and such a subject is a matter of extreme concern to many people.”

Translink – as a public authority in NI – is under a duty not to facilitate racial discrimination, and to ‘equality test’ the policy decisions it makes under its legally binding ‘equality scheme’. Equality testing involves a process of initially ‘equality screening’ policies to assess their impact. Where policies are likely to have adverse impacts, an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) and public consultation may follow (6).

Translink have confirmed in correspondence with CAJ (7) that they have undertaken none of these Equality Scheme processes on their openly stated policy of facilitating such passport checks on their buses (8). As a result, CAJ – along with the 17 complainants – decided there was clear grounds for submitting the breach of equality scheme complaint to Translink. The complaint was made to Translink on Monday 2 September 2019.

Úna Boyd explained,

“Initially when we enquired about this policy, Translink told us they were ‘obliged’ to facilitate the boarding of their buses for such passport checks. However, when we asked Translink what these legal obligations were, they were unable to answer. It appears they now know there is no proper legal basis for such checks, or are still to check, long after the policy has been adopted.”

Liam Herrick, Executive Director of the ICCL, said,

“The lack of legal basis for such cross border checks is of serious concern. Even more worrying are the allegations that members of An Garda Síochána may be engaging in racial profiling. This is a form of discrimination that would constitute a clear violation of An Garda Síochána’s human rights obligations and of their public sector duty to prevent discrimination. Such practices must be properly investigated and immediately prohibited.”

Under Translink’s equality scheme, they typically have to respond to complaints within one month (9).

The End Deportations Campaign has been logging witness testimony of passport checks carried out on cross-border transport. You can report such instances through their online reporting tool: https://edbracistreporting.typeform.com/to/kl6yCY.

Footnotes

The Garda National Immigration Bureau is a unit of Ireland’s national police force, An Garda Siochana, and is responsible for deportations, border control and investigations related to illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings.
The statutory basis for powers of passport/immigration control in the UK is the Immigration Act 1971. This contains passport control powers, including powers of examination (questioning) and duties to produce passports/id cards on request. However, local journeys in the CTA, including on the land border are explicitly exempt from the use of such passport control. Section 1(3) of the Act provides that: “Arrival in and departure from the United Kingdom on a local journey from or to any of the Islands (that is to say, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man) or the Republic of Ireland shall not be subject to [immigration/passport] control under this Act…” Link: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/77/section/1
For example, In April 2018, Northern Ireland Office Minister Ian Duncan told the UK Parliament that “… There can be no racial profiling at a border, whether it be routine, quixotic or even accidental … That cannot be the policy or the direction … There will be no checks whatever for journeys across the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, nor between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.”
Section 11 of the Immigration Act 2004 is the statutory basis for passport control for those arriving into the Republic of Ireland, containing duties both to carry passports and provide them on request to an immigration officer. However, subsection 11(4) explicitly excludes journeys into the State over the land border (or elsewhere in the CTA) from both of these duties. An exemption is then made to this for ‘non nationals’ defined in the amended 2004 Act as persons who are neither Irish citizens nor persons exercising EU free movement rights.
This at present includes British citizens, who remain EU citizens until at least the 31 October 2019 (after this date, due to Brexit, British citizens may be required by law to carry and produce their passports).
More information here: https://www.equalityni.org/Employers-Service-Providers/Public-Authorities/Section75/Section-75/Screening
This correspondence revealed that no equality screening, consultation or EQIA was undertaken or is planned in relation to the policy.
See the statement given by Translink in this article: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/carry-your-passport-says-man-quizzed-on-belfast-to-dublin-bus-38093657.html.
The Equality Scheme is available here: https://trn-prd-cdn-01.azureedge.net/mediacontainer/medialibraries/translink/publications-and-documents/nithc/reports/nithc-equality-scheme-(february-2013).pdf. See page 29-30 for the complaints procedure.
An excerpt from this correspondence reads, “Given the increasing diversity of the Irish population, it is not possible to tell who is an Irish, British or other EU citizen by simply looking at people and making a decision based on their appearance. There is therefore no manner in which such checks, and concurrent decisions on who to examine, who is required to carry or furnish a passport or who to detain, can be undertaken without engaging in racial profiling, thereby rendering such checks by their nature discriminatory … It seems that the hard border already exists for those who are targeted due to factors such as their skin colour or accent … It is contrary to the obligations of An Garda Siochana under applicable human rights law and the public sector duty under S.42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act to engage in discriminatory practices. Targeting Irish or British citizens because they are members of ethnic minorities for passport checks would in our view constitute a discriminatory practice. In this context, we call on the Government and on the Garda Commissioner to fully examine whether such practices are taking place and, if they are, require the GNIB to end such practices immediately.”

Please direct media enquiries to Robyn Scott, Communications & Equality Coalition Coordinator

Email – robyn@caj.org.uk

Mob – 075 1994 1203

Tel – 028 9031 6000

CAJ Immigration Project Coordinator, Úna Boyd, is available for interview.

Notes to editors

The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) is an independent, non-governmental human rights organisation, which works to ensure that the administration of justice in Northern Ireland is compatible with the highest international human rights standards.
See www.caj.org.uk for further information on CAJ and its work.

A Renaissance of the Peace Process? What kind of society do we need?

When: 9.30am to 4.30pm, Friday 27 September 2019

Where: Canada Room, Queen’s University Belfast

To register click here

A working conference organised by CAJ in collaboration with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), QUB Human Rights Centre, and Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

The reality of Northern Ireland life for the past two decades is that the peace settlement arrived at in the 1998 Belfast / Good Friday Agreement and reinforced by subsequent pacts has delivered relative peace despite being imperfectly implemented. However, the Brexit process so far has undermined some of the basic assumptions of this agreement and far more serious damage will be done if the UK leaves the EU, especially if there is ‘no deal’.

In any event, we are heading into a time of political turbulence and perhaps confrontation. Soon, we will have a new Prime Minister. A little further on, we may have a general election, a new referendum, or just continuing political guerrilla warfare in a febrile climate of uncertainty. To add to that, Brexit has led to a new focus on the possibility of a united Ireland.

It is urgently necessary for civil society, and particularly human rights activists, to develop a common perspective on how we move forward in these dangerous times. As a working concept, some of us from within the sector have developed the idea of a ‘Renaissance of the Peace Process’. This means a rebirth of the principles within the peace settlement, going back to basics and implementing what was neglected, while also adapting and developing solutions for the new challenges coming down the road. We need to make people feel safe and secure in their identities and ability to access protection of their rights.

A Good Friday referendum poster from 1998

This cannot be a project restricted to Northern Ireland alone. The futures of North and South are fundamentally interconnected and so, just like with the 1998 agreement, solutions must have an all-island perspective. This working conference is designed to discuss the overall concept of a Renaissance of the Peace Process and to elaborate on the policies and actions necessary moving forward. It is organised with the intention to gather views predominantly from the North, but will also welcome input from the South, and we hope will be a good starting point for further discussions.

There will be three main panels during the conference:

Implementing the peace agreements – Looking at the Bill and Charter of Rights, a rights based return to power sharing, policing, and dealing with the past.

A rights based society after Brexit – Examining immigration, citizenship, rights across the island, and the prospect of a broad based equality campaign.

Rights and constitutional change – Dealing with the Good Friday Agreement and rights in a constitutional debate, the necessary development of rights protection in the South, and prospective guarantees for Unionists in a United Ireland.

There will be Q&A at each panel but the final session will be an opportunity for open discussion on the way forward by all present.

Among confirmed speakers and panel chairs are: Doireann Ansbro, Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL); Eilis Barry, Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC); Una Boyd, Committee of the Administration of Justice (CAJ); Colin Harvey, Queen’s University Belfast; Kieran McEvoy, Queen’s University Belfast; Susan McKay, Journalist & Broadcaster; Paul O’Connor, Pat Finucane Centre; Dawn Purvis, Activist; Peter Shirlow, University of Liverpool; and Anne Smith, Ulster University.

A full agenda will follow soon. If you have any questions about this event, please direct them to the CAJ team on 028 9031 6000 or events@caj.org.uk.

Please register via Eventbrite. Go to bit.ly/renaissance-conference-19.

We cannot continue work like this without your support. Please consider joining ICCL.

ICCL welcomes Finucane ruling, calls for public inquiry

Dublin, 27 February 2019

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has welcomed this morning’s UK Supreme Court decision, which found that there has been no effective investigation into the murder of Pat Finucane. We join the Finucane family in calling for a full and public inquiry, in order to vindicate their rights to truth and justice.

ICCL director Liam Herrrick said:

“The collusion of state actors in the assassination of a lawyer is a serious threat to justice and the entire democratic system and remains so as long as a proper investigation remains pending.

Pat Finucane’s family have the right to have a full and detailed investigation into his murder, and to know the extent of State collusion and what individual security officers were involved in that murder. In keeping with our long standing position, we are calling on the British government to fulfill its obligations to the family, and to the wider public, through a full and public inquiry.”

An effective investigation is required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Supreme Court today said that, thus far, this requirement had not been met and that it would be up to the British government to decide “what form of investigation” is required into the assassination of Mr. Finucane.

A previous inquiry found that “agents of the state were involved in carrying out serious violation of human rights up to and including murder”. The Supreme Court said today that, because no individual suspects have been identified or held accountable, Article 2 requirements have not been met.

The Court’s Declaration underlines the need for a more comprehensive approach to transitional justice issues in Northern Ireland. There are a number of other cases in which the rights of victims and their families to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence have not been met. A rights-compliant approach to transitional justice in Northern Ireland is long overdue and necessary.

Throughout the peace process ICCL and our colleagues in Northern Ireland have consistently argued that the vindication of human rights is an essential foundation for peace on this island. We continue to call for the full and equal respect of all rights for everyone on the island of Ireland, particularly in the context of the potential impact of Brexit.

Letter to Irish Times: Rights and equality challenges of Brexit

Sir, – As organisations and academics working for the protection and advancement of human rights in Northern Ireland and Ireland, there is much to welcome in the draft withdrawal agreement protocol published by the European Commission last week, which translates the political agreement from December 2017 between the UK and the EU into legal form.

The recognition that the Belfast Agreement must be protected “in all its parts” and the explicit reference to the human rights and equality provisions of the agreement are significant grounding principles. The draft protocol also states that North-South cooperation and the guarantee to avoid a hard border are “overarching requirements” for any future arrangements.

“It is now essential that guarantees achieved to date in relation to human rights and the position of Northern Ireland are clarified. Outstanding difficult issues must now be confronted and apparent contradictions resolved.”

At the same time, the contradictions presented by the competing objectives of the parties to the Brexit process are becoming increasingly apparent. It is now essential that guarantees achieved to date in relation to human rights and the position of Northern Ireland are clarified. Outstanding difficult issues must now be confronted and apparent contradictions resolved.

We welcome the restated commitment in the draft protocol to no diminution of rights in Northern Ireland and the explicit reference to protections against discrimination as protected by EU law, which must clearly include the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and all EU-derived legislation that currently protects human rights in Northern Ireland. We also need greater clarity about the manner of retention of those specific rights and how they will be enforced post-Brexit.

As we move into a more technical phase of the process, it is crucial that principles of human rights and equality inform all the emerging processes, standards and institutions. This applies to any newly formulated arrangements for the Common Travel Area and freedom of movement across these islands.

These principles must also apply to the economic and social rights of citizens to access services.

The stated purpose of the draft protocol is to create a “common regulatory area” of the island of Ireland. The debate has too often focused on regulations applying to goods; we need urgent clarity about what regulatory alignment means in relation to all those living on the island.

The draft protocol raises issues of respect for equal citizenship in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland. The draft protocol makes reference to the “rights, opportunities and identity that come with citizenship of the Union for the people of Northern Ireland who choose to assert their right to Irish citizenship”.

“These rights should not be conditional upon a requirement to declare Irish citizenship, in line with the guarantees of equality under the Belfast Agreement.”

We believe in the equal rights of all the people of Northern Ireland, and we believe that the rights currently available to all the people of Northern Ireland as EU citizens should continue to be available to them under any new agreement. These rights should not be conditional upon a requirement to declare Irish citizenship, in line with the guarantees of equality under the Belfast Agreement.

In the context of ensuring that human rights continue to be universal in both principle and practice this may prove to be divisive and unhelpful.

It must be recalled that the protocol to the draft agreement is largely concerned with setting out the details of a “backstop” scenario – the situation that would prevail if no agreement is reached between the parties.

As a starting point, or baseline position, we must ensure that rights and equality remain at the centre of any alternative agreement that might now follow. There remains a real risk that human rights and equality will be airbrushed out of this process.

Finally, we must plan for the complicated future that lies ahead. We must take this opportunity to strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights and equality on this island.

This is the moment to renew our focus on a bill of rights for Northern Ireland and a charter of rights for the island as ways to mitigate the messy rights and equality challenges that may inevitably emerge as a direct consequence of Brexit.

We must remember that human rights were given a central place in the peace process and the Belfast Agreement of April 1998 precisely so that the all those who live in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland could move beyond historic divisions and build a future based on shared values. This powerful idea is even more compelling in our present circumstances. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN GORMALLY,
Director, Committee on the Administration of Justice

LIAM HERRICK,
Executive Director, Irish Council for Civil Liberties

EILIS BARRY,
Chief Executive, The Free Legal Advice Centres

KEVIN HANRATTY,
Director, Human Rights Consortium

PADDY KELLY,
Director, Children’s Law Centre

TANYA WARD,
Director, Children’s Rights Alliance

MICHAEL FARRELL,
Solicitor

Dr SUZANNE EGAN,
Assistant Professor, Sutherland School of Law,
Director, UCD Centre for Human Rights

COLIN HARVEY,
Professor of Human Rights Law, Queen’s University Belfast

SHANE KILCOMMINS,
Head of School of Law, University of Limerick

Prof SIOBHÁN MULLALLY,
Established Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway

RORY O’CONNELL,
Professor of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Ulster University.

Open letter to Brexit negotiators from island-wide coalition of NGOs

The ICCL has convened a coalition of organisations in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to campaign for human rights to be put front and centre in the Brexit negotiations. On 1 December 2017 the coalition sent an open letter to all negotiating parties calling on them to give written guarantees that the final Brexit deal will respect the core principles of rights and equality that underpin the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

We are calling for:

No Regression or Diminution of Rights and Equality of Rights Protections

Read the coalition’s open letter

Joint letter to Irish Times on Brexit & Human Rights

Irish Times. Thu, Nov 16, 2017

Sir, – We are entering a critical phase in the Brexit process. At this juncture, it is essential that the Irish Government stands steadfast in its commitment to the protection of human rights in Northern Ireland and across the whole island.

Between now and December 16th, the European Commission and Council (including the Irish Government) will assess whether “sufficient progress” has been made in negotiations with the British government on the key issues of EU citizens’ rights and Northern Ireland. If so, talks will move on to include other issues.

Given the lack of clarity in the British stance, no-one expects these issues to be resolved by December 16th. However, all parties will be weighing up evidence of intent and political will. There will be pressure to find positive news on issues like the Irish Border.

In the drive to find common ground and momentum, we must guard against ignoring deeper issues at stake or undermining the foundations of the Belfast Agreement. The agreement was about more than just bilateral trade-offs between two states. It was about more than ending conflict. It was fundamentally about building a society based on the principles of human rights, equality and dignity.

The society contemplated in the agreement remains a work in progress. Northern Ireland, like the Republic, remains an unequal society with many serious human rights challenges. However, the British government currently proposes to withdraw from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as soon as Brexit happens and plans to repeal the Human Rights Act, by which the European Convention on Human Rights is incorporated into UK law once Brexit is complete, thereby jeopardising the future that we have all been working towards.

There need to be assurances that all who live in Northern Ireland will retain the protection of those human rights treaties currently in force.

Northern Irish citizens must be guaranteed the right to hold both British citizenship and Irish and EU citizenship without any difference in treatment.

There must also be assurances that the rights of non-EU citizens living in Northern Ireland will not suffer a diminution.

Over the next month political decisions will be taken that will determine the future of all of us on this island. Business and political voices will be heard, but we must ensure that the voice of the communities who require protection of their human rights are heard loudly as well.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, along with other civil society organisations, will provide a platform for those concerned with these human rights issues to make their voices heard, and we would encourage others to do likewise. – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL FARRELL,
Solicitor;

Dr COLIN HARVEY,
Professor of Human Rights Law,
School of Law,
Queen’s University Belfast;

LIAM HERRICK,

Irish Council for Civil Liberties,
Blackhall Place,
Dublin 7.

Equality complaint made against Translink for facilitating discriminatory passport checks on cross-border buses

A Renaissance of the Peace Process? What kind of society do we need?

ICCL welcomes Finucane ruling, calls for public inquiry

Letter to Irish Times: Rights and equality challenges of Brexit

Open letter to Brexit negotiators from island-wide coalition of NGOs

Joint letter to Irish Times on Brexit & Human Rights

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