Getting the Bill Right

The event focused on what the specific content of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland should be. Topics reflected the current working group headings of the Bill of Rights Forum and issues as diverse as children and young peoples’ rights, culture, identity and language rights, through to social and economic rights were debated.

“Recognition of human rights, ultimately, is the basis for peace, whether in Northern Ireland or South Africa. I would argue that all modern societies can benefit from a written Bill of Rights, setting out the framework within which government must operate and all in society should respect each other.

“However, in societies where conflict has been high, the need for such a framework is all the more obvious,” said Professor Asmal, who was an academic at Trinity College Dublin before he returned to his home country.

The topics of the six Forum working groups, which are currently engaged in discussing the substantive content of a Bill of Rights, were discussed for the rest of the day. These are:

• Preamble, implementation and enforceability
• Civil and political rights
• Social and economic rights
• Culture, identity and language
• Children, young people and women
• Criminal justice and victims

Speakers raised and delegates asked many questions which will no doubt be repeated on the Forum itself. Much of the debate centred on the interaction of the eventual Bill of Rights and the current European Convention on Human Rights and Human Rights Act; how international conventions would be incorporated at a domestic level into the Bill of Rights; and a range of issues about implementation and enforceability.

Delegates and participants on the day were drawn from a wide range of community and voluntary groups, political parties, churches, NGOs, businesses, academics, trade unions, statutory organisations, civil servants and, perhaps most importantly, members of the Bill of Rights Forum.

Fiona McCausland, chair of the Human Rights Consortium said: “There are only six months left until the reporting deadline for the Bill of Rights Forum. This is a very small window in which to garner the type of public interest, participation and ownership that the Bill of Rights process needs and deserves in order to guarantee that the eventual Bill of Rights reflects the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland.

“We have organised this conference in order to help facilitate that type of engagement and would encourage people to get involved in the Bill of Rights debate.”