Professor O’Flaherty added that, in his view, it “beggars belief that the Government has failed to designate human rights protection and promotion as a charitable purpose in the Charities Act (2009)”

Professor O’Flaherty was speaking at Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change: Facing Up to Challenges under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a conference jointly organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) and FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres).

Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change: Facing Up to Challenges under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) will see UN Human Rights Committee members Judge Elizabeth Palm and Professor Michael O’Flaherty discuss the international standards set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the importance of their implementation.

The Government has yet to implement a series of human rights recommendations for Ireland produced last summer by the UN. These recommendations, mirrored by a ‘shadow report’ published in June 2008 by the ICCL, IPRT and FLAC, highlighted gaps in the protection of the vulnerable which the Government failed to close during the boom years. These included the ongoing imposition of imprisonment for failure to pay civil debts; unhygienic and overcrowded conditions in Irish prisons and failures to adequately combat domestic violence.

Speaking today, ICCL Director Mr. Mark Kelly stated today:

“This conference will provide a very timely opportunity to take stock of the Government’s human rights responsibilities, particularly towards Ireland’s most vulnerable, those who were left behind by the boom years”.

“In this harsh economic climate, where the importance of preserving and promoting human rights can often be overlooked, implementation of the UN Committee’s recommendations has never been more urgent. Positive action will be required achieve this.” he added.

Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change will take place from 10:00am on Monday 6 April in the Radisson Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8. The full conference programme is available HERE.

A photocall and interviews with participants for press and broadcast media will take place in advance of the conference from 9:30 am, assembly in the Radisson hotel lobby.

For further details on the conference, and to download the ICCL/IPRT/FLAC joint ICCPR Shadow Report and related materials, please visit www.rightsmonitor.org.

For all press enquiries, and to arrange interviews with conference participants and ICCL, IPRT and FLAC representatives please see our contacts page.

Speaking on the eve of budget day, UN Human Rights Committee members Judge Elizabeth Palm and Professor Michael O’Flaherty will discuss the international standards set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the importance of their implementation.

The conference, Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change: Facing Up to Challenges under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) has been organised by the three leading human rights organisations: FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres), Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT), which last summer presented a “shadow report” to the UN Human Rights Committee detailing Ireland’s implementation of its international human rights obligations.

The shadow report and the UN’s own report have highlighted gaps in the protection of the vulnerable which the Government failed to close during the Celtic Tiger years. For example, the law in Ireland continues, in effect, to permit the imposition of a term of imprisonment for failure to pay a civil debt; Irish prisons remain overcrowded and unhygienic; and measures combating domestic violence and protecting its victims remain inadequate. A series of UN human rights recommendations for Ireland produced last summer, which the Government has yet to implement in full, mirrored many of the shadow report’s findings. In this harsher economic climate, positive action will be required to ensure that those left behind by the boom are not abandoned altogether.

This conference will provide a very timely opportunity to take stock of the Government’s responsibilities towards the most vulnerable people in Ireland. Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change will take place from 10:00am on Monday 6 April in the Radisson Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8.

The final conference programme is available to download HERE.

A photocall and interviews with participants for press and broadcast media will take place in advance of the conference from 9:30 am in the Radisson hotel lobby.

For all press enquiries, and to arrange interviews with conference participants and ICCL, IPRT and FLAC representatives please see our contacts page.

• Judge Elisabeth Palm, Rapporteur on Ireland and former judge of the Swedish courts and former Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights;

• Professor Michael O’Flaherty, Co-Director of the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Nottingham and the Irish elected member of the UN Human Rights Committee.

The conference will take place on 6 April 2009 from 10:00 at the Radisson Hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin. For further details and to register your interest, please contact Edel Quinn, FLAC Legal Research Officer at Edel.Quinn@flac.ie.

Please click HERE for a google map of the venue.

Among the recommendations of the Committee are:

The Committee is concerned about increased levels of incarceration in Ireland.
It is particularly concerned about the persistence of unacceptable prison conditions including:

• Overcrowding,

• Insufficient personal hygiene conditions, including slopping out,

• Non-segregation of remand prisoners,

• The shortage of mental health care for detainees, and

• The high level of inter-prisoner violence

The Committee has requested that the State provide it with detailed statistical data showing progress since the adoption of the present recommendation, including on concrete promotion and implementation of alternative measures to detention.

IPRT Director Liam Herrick welcomed the recommendations:

“These recommendations reflect the urgency and importance with which the international human rights system views the problems facing our prison system.”

“Perhaps most significantly of all, the Committee clearly warns against increasingly levels of imprisonment and asks the State to make greater use of alternatives to custody, particularly for groups such as fine defaulters.  As other countries have shown this is a realistic target which could have great economic and social benefits as well as reducing the harm that imprisonment can do.”

Liam Herrick
Executive Director
Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT)
lherrick@iprt.ie
087-2351374

According to FLAC’s director Noeline Blackwell “The Committee’s observations are welcome as an objective and expert assessment of progress in implementing human rights in Ireland. The Committee has noted some positive developments, but they also raise a worrying number of concerns.  The concerns raised for transgendered people and for those who are imprisoned for failure to pay a civil debt affect some of the most vulnerable people in the land and are concerns that we in FLAC have also raised with the government.”

FLAC states that the failure of the Irish state to allow for birth certificates which would recognize a change of gender by transgender people had been raised by the Committee in relation to 5 separate articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  According to Blackwell, Ireland now stands in a tiny minority in Europe, with Albania, Andorra and the Vatican, in failing to make provision for such birth certificates.

FLAC stated that the Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Committee Mr. Rivas Posada had already stated at the end of the oral session on Ireland’s report on the 15th of July that he found the Irish state delegation’s explanations as to why almost 1,000 people ended up in jail for debt related matters “not convincing”. FLAC said that this comment had now been followed up by a written concern about the fact that the government did not intend to amend the law which “may in effect” allow imprisonment for those who are unable to pay their civil debts.  FLAC has today called on the Irish government to end the system which effectively jails people who cannot pay a debt.  Blackwell called the system “truly archaic, grossly inefficient and a breach of international human rights law”.  The organization which campaigns for reform of debt law as part of greater access to justice, says that the current system benefits no one, and is costly, inefficient and very unfair.

FLAC also welcomed the recommendation that the government should publicize the text of the report that it  to the Committee and the committee’s recommendations.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has welcomed the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s Concluding Observations on Ireland, released today following the State’s examination in Geneva last week [Download here]. The Committee’s list of concerns catalogues Ireland’s failure to uphold human rights guarantees under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The Human Rights Committee took up major concerns outlined by the NGO Shadow Report which was launched on 14 July 2008 by the ICCL and partner NGOs. Concerns included CIA rendition operations through Shannon Airport, summary removal of migrants without any due process, inequalities in upcoming civil partnership legislation and abortion reform.

Extraordinary Rendition

The Committee expressed concern about “allegations that Irish airports have been used as transit points for so-called rendition flights of persons to countries where they risk being subjected to torture”. It underlined to the Government that care needs to be taken in relying on official assurances from the United States and also recommended that Ireland should “establish a regime for the control of suspicious flights and ensure that all allegations of so-called renditions are publicly investigated”.

Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and Criminal Justice Reforms

The Committee expressed concern at the backlog of cases before the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and at the possibility of complaints involving potentially criminal conduct being referred to the Garda Commissioner. The Committee was also concerned that the law does not guarantee that lawyers should be present during questioning and that provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2007 further restrict the right to silence.

It called on the Government to take “immediate measures to ensure the effective functioning of the Garda Síochana Ombudsman Commission”.

It also recommended that the State should “give full effect to the rights of criminal suspects to contact counsel before, and to have counsel present during, interrogation” and that the Government should amend the law “to ensure that inferences from the failure to answer questions by an accused person may not be drawn, at least where the accused has not had prior consultations with counsel.”

Abortion and the Right to Life

The Committee was critical of Ireland’s failure to deal with the issue of abortion and informed the Government that it must bring its laws in conformity with the ICCPR. This means that our laws should not criminalise women for having abortions because it results in women having unsafe and illegal abortions. It also means that therapeutic abortions should be available for women who have a fatal foetal abnormality and when a woman’s life is in danger.
Summary Removal

The Committee expressed concern at provisions in the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 allowing for summary removal of migrants without any form of due process or access to the courts. It pointed that the denial of recourse to legal protection is a violation of article 13 of the ICCPR. It recommended that the Government “should amend the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 to outlaw summary removal”.

Refugee Appeals Tribunal

The Committee was particularly concerned about the “alleged lack of independence of the proposed substitute for the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (the Protection Review Tribunal) due to the appointment procedures of its part-time members.”

Civil Partnership

The Committee acknowledged the Government’s intention to adopt legislation on Civil Partnership, but expressed concern that no provisions regarding taxation and social welfare have been made. The Committee recommended that the Government “ensure that its legislation is not discriminatory of non-traditional forms of partnership, including taxation and welfare benefits”.

Reaction

Commenting on the Committee’s Concluding Observations, ICCL Deputy Director Tanya Ward, who attended the Irish examination in Geneva last week, stated:

“This time the Human Rights Committee has been particularly critical of Ireland’s poor performance under this human rights convention. It did not accept the Government’s defence of its stance on extraordinary rendition and called on Ireland to establish a proper regime to investigate these flights.

“The Committee was also very clear that proposed reforms in the Civil Partnership Bill must include taxation and welfare for same-sex couples and that the summary removal of migrants without any due process, provided for in the Immigration, Residence and Protection bill, should be outlawed” she continued.

“The Committee’s concluding observations provide a crystal clear picture of Ireland’s failure to live up to its human rights obligations, and an extensive ‘to do’ list for improvement. The ICCL calls on the Government immediately to acknowledge the Committee and the Irish NGO community by addressing their concerns in a substantive and meaningful manner”, she concluded.

Irish Times: UN committee to question rendition stance

Irish Independent: Legal experts warn Mountjoy is a disaster waiting to happen

Irish Independent: How dare the UN take us to task on human rights

Irish Examiner: Ireland’s human rights - State has neglected its duty of care

RTÉ Online: Irish rights record criticised in report

RTÉ TV: http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0714/1news_av.html?2398586,null,230

Preliminary Concluding Observations

RAFAEL RIVAS POSADA, Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee, in preliminary concluding observations, highlighted that a number of points and concerns raised by the committee were still pending responses and, as promised by the head of the delegation, would be supplemented and provided in writing at a later date. The Committee would continue to follow step-by-step the human rights situation in Ireland.

Committee Experts had raised a number of questions and concerns on what articles and rights in the Covenant were covered by domestic legislation in Ireland, Mr. Rivas Posada noted. There was an indirect system of referring to the Covenant and the articles covered in the Covenant. Reference had been made to the language used in the famous Article 41 of the Constitution, which was in direct opposition to the Covenant. It seemed that there was still remnants of the traditional culture in Ireland, which played down the role of women in society and such Constitutional articles might be a symptom of that.

Mr. Rivas Posada observed that Ireland considered that a state of emergency existed in Ireland and as such validated the existence and continued emergence of special courts. That had left doubts within the Committee as to what extent the State party could clearly uphold the established standards in the articles of the Covenant.

On the subject of abortion and education a number of doubts and concerns remained, Mr. Rivas Posada continued. Also, whereas Ireland had made efforts to expand freedom of religion and expression, nonetheless, concerns remained in regard to freedom of children and women which had influenced policies leading to equality and freedom of religion. Lastly, on the issue of imprisonment for civil debt, the delegation had repeatedly explained that the phenomenon did not exist. Nonetheless, it was an obligation imposed by the judge and if not upheld under civil contempt charges an individual might go to prison. That explanation was not convincing to the Committee and that provision was in direct violation of Article 14 of the Covenant which prohibited imprisonment for debt.

Download the full text of the press release in our Resource Download Library under ‘UN Materials’. The Irish Government’s supplementary responses, mentioned above, were issued to the Human Rights Committee on Friday 18 July 2008 and can also be downloaded in our Resource Download Library under ‘Government Materials’.