Press Release – For immediate release
Friday 20 April 2012
Ireland’s independent human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has indicated that “tough new criteria” will be applied to determine whether the new Human Rights and Equality Commission (HREC) lives up to international best practice.
The ICCL was responding to the publication (today, 20 April 2012) of the Report of the Working Group on the new Human Rights and Equality Commission.
The report echoes a number of recommendations made by the ICCL in its November 2011 submission to the Working Group. These include recommendations that the new body:
- fully uphold the UN’s ‘Paris Principles’ on National Human Rights Institutions
- report directly to the Oireachtas, as opposed to the Department of Justice, on which it relies for funding
- preserve, not reduce, the existing functions of the Human Rights Commission and Equality Authority
The ICCL has also welcomed the report’s recommendations that commissioners, staff and management should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based process, and that funding should be ‘ringfenced’ to ensure the new body can carry out its functions effectively. Other positive recommendations in the report include the proposal that there be a general duty on public bodies to have regard to equality and human rights.
However, the report remains ambiguous on the precise legal functions of the new body’s equality arm, particularly with regard to Equal Status cases. The report states that the functions of the Equality Authority in relation to Equality Tribunal cases will continue under the new body, including once the Equality Tribunal is subsumed into the new Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). However the report fails to acknowledge that this only applies to Employment Equality cases, and not to the Tribunal’s other function – complaints under the Equal Status Act. The ICCL trusts that this issue will be clarified swiftly.
ICCL Director Mr Mark Kelly said:
“We welcome the positive spirit of the report. However, this new entity will require accreditation by the International Coordinating Committee (ICC) of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (NHRIs). Tough new criteria have been identified by the ICC’s Sub-Committee on Accreditation regarding the standard that NHRIs should meet and the ICCL intends to play an active role in that accreditation process to ensure that the new HREC will meet best international standards in substance, not just in form”.
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Walter Jayawardene
Communications Manager
Irish Council for Civil Liberties
9-13 Blackhall Place
Dublin 7
Ireland
Tel. + 353 1 799 4504
Mob: +353 87 9981574
E-mail: walter.jayawardene@iccl.ie
Twitter : @ICCLtweet
NOTE TO EDITOR:
The Report of the Working Group on the new Human Rights and Equality Commission is available at http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/20120419-WorkingGroupRpt-HumanRightsEqualityCommission.pdf/Files/20120419-WorkingGroupRpt-HumanRightsEqualityCommission.pdf
The Working Group was appointed on 6 October 2011 by the Minister for Justice and Equality and Defence, Mr Alan Shatter TD to advise on the establishment of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC). Following a public invitation, the Group received and considered a substantial number of submissions from the public. It also reviewed literature on human rights and equality from a wide range of national and international sources, submissions to the Group from other bodies, and also papers prepared from within the Group.
The Sub-Committee on Accreditation of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has set out tough criteria for national human rights institutions to follow. These are available in Appendix 3, p95 of the Working Group’s report, at the above link.
The ICCL made a submission to the Working Group in November 2011outlining some of the shortcomings of the current structures and providing answers to the three key questions on which the Working Group has sought responses:
- What should the new body do?
- What features and functions will it need in order to carry out its work?
- How should it be structured and what working methods should it use to achieve the above?
The ICCL’s submission is available here.