Transcript of Dame Nuala O'Loan's
lecture commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration
on Human Rights, hosted by the Committee on 10 December 2008
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am very honoured to have been invited to deliver this lecture
on the occasion of the commemoration of the 60th Anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I would like to
express my thanks to Mr Andrew Dismore and his colleagues on the
Joint Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords
for their kind invitation to be here today. It is my intention
to reflect on what was done in 1948, what has been achieved since,
where we are now and what challenges remain for us.
Knowing that this occasion was approaching
I have watched with interest the debate on Human Rights both globally
and nationally as this anniversary approached. They have been
quite different. I spoke at the United Nations in Geneva a couple
of weeks ago, where the debate was about how to ensure maximum
compliance with Human Rights standards and how to handle the complex
problems of peace-keeping. In Delhi last week at an Asia Europe
Foundation meeting, countries as widely dispersed as Outer Mongolia,
Cambodia, Spain, India and Latvia pondered how to give real effect
to Human Rights in policing across Asia and Europe. There was
whole hearted commitment to the principles of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms.
The debate here in the UK seems to
be reaching a crescendo with commitments to repeal the Human Rights
Act and a discourse which can be, on the one side, both dismissive
and contemptuous of Human Rights, whilst on the other there continues
to be a passionate commitment to the basic principles of Human
Rights. It has been interesting to reflect on this situation as
I have contemplated the events of 60 years ago. I was particularly
encouraged today to hear both Prime Minister Gordon Brown and
Rt Hon Michael Wills MP, Minister of State for Justice articulate
their clear support for Human Rights today. A Liberty poll published
today shows that 96% of those polls think rights and freedoms
are important.
Few of us here today will have personal
memories of the two World Wars. Yet every November we remember
all those who gave their lives in all the wars and we seek, too,
to support those lives that have been irreparably damaged because
of the their service to their country. We remember too, all those
who died, and we can see in the stark statistics of the nature
of the deaths in the two wars the changing face of modern warfare.
In 1914-1918 approximately 95% of those who died were military,
only 5% were civilian casualties, but in 1939-1945 only 33% of
those who died were in military service - 65% were civilians.
Over 45 million people died.
Such was the scale of death and the
physical, economic, social and spiritual devastation of the war
that the peoples of the world came together in the United Nations
in San Francisco in June 1945 to try and enter into agreements
to try to prevent this ever happening again. The first and greatest
level of activity was aimed at creating and agreeing, between
as many nations as possible, a Universal Bill of Rights. The work
was hard and the United Kingdom played its part from the beginning
- the first draft of a Bill of Rights was presented to the UN
by Lord Dukeston, the UK member on the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights. He also presented a draft resolution which might
be passed by the General Assembly when adopting the Bill. As events
played out the Commission decided that its first instrument would
be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Yearbook of
the United Nations 1948-1949 records the UK's contributions to
the debate, including the articulation of the need for a Convention
and implementing measures to give effect to the declaration. On
10 December 1948, after over two years work the Declaration was
adopted in Paris by 48 votes with 8 abstentions.[7]
I think much has been forgotten, or
indeed never known, about the Universal Declaration and the various
instruments which followed it. There has been much talk of the
need to legislate for responsibilities as well as rights, but
this recognition of the responsibilities of citizens is not new.
The General Assembly of the UN, in 1948 proclaimed in the first
paragraph of the Declaration that it was:
"a common standard of achievement
for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual
and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly
in mind shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect
for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national
and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition
and observance."
The International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights which was adopted on 16 December 1966, pursuant
to the Universal Declaration, had in the final paragraph of its
preamble the following words:
"Realizing that the individual,
having duties to other individual and to the community to which
it belongs, is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion
and observance of the rights recognised in the present covenant."
What seems to have been missing recently
is the spirit of the Universal Declaration which stated:
"All human beings should act towards
one another in the spirit of brotherhood[8]
and everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free
and full development of his personality is possible.
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms,
everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined
by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and
respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the
just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare
in a democratic society."[9]
And finally:
"Nothing in this Declaration may
be interpreted as implying for and State, group or person any
right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the
destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."[10]
This may be slightly archaic language
but the intention and the commitment is clear. Human rights were
always about responsibilities too. We have just forgotten that.
So what was is that we pledged ourselves
to promote and respect sixty years ago? I am going to articulate
some of the fundamental rights briefly, and as I do so, I ask
you to consider whether you would wish to expunge any one of these
rights or whether you believe, as our forefathers did that they
are universal and fundamental. The United Kingdom has a long tradition
dating from the Magna Carta in 1215 of providing legal protection
for rights. I could have chosen any of the rights, but I will
simply refer to a few because I have limited time. As I articulate
them I would ask you to bear in mind the exhortations as to responsibility
to which I have just referred.
- The fact that
we are all born free and equal in dignity and rights without distinction
of any kind;
- That we all have
the right to life, liberty and security of person;
- That there shall
be no slavery; and that everyone is a person before the law;
- That no-one shall
be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment;
- That we are all
equal before the law and entitled to equal protection before the
law;
- That we have
the rights to an effective remedy for acts violating our fundamental
legal or constitutional rights;
- That no-one shall
be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile;
- That we are entitled
to fair trial, and have the right to be presumed innocent of any
criminal charge until proved guilty under the law;
- That we have
a right to privacy, marriage, family, home or correspondence and
to our honour and our reputation;
- That we have
the right to own property, and the freedom of thought conscience
and religion, of opinion and expression and peaceful assembly
and association.
I think that you will agree that the
rights articulated in the Declaration are not subversive, but
they are fundamental to our status as human beings. Their declaration,
after all, was the product of the fact that "disregard and
contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which
have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world
in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief
and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest
aspiration of the common people."[11]
I think that you will agree that the
rights articulated in the Declaration are not subversive, but
they are fundamental to our status as human beings. Their declaration,
after all, was the product of the fact that "disregard and
contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which
have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world
in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief
and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest
aspiraion of the common people."
Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the Chairman
of the Human Rights Commission at the time, said "Where,
after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close
to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any
maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person;
the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends;
the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places
where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity,
equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have
meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned
citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in
vain for progress in the larger world."
Those days of 1948 were hard days,
as the world rebuilt itself after seven years of conflict and
we know that the aspirations of 1948 clearly have not been met
in all countries. Nonetheless significant progress has resulted
from the lengthy and difficult arguments which led ultimately
to the adoption of the UN Declaration. The international covenants
which followed address a huge variety of issues from civil and
political rights, economic and social rights, the elimination
of discrimination against women, the rights of a child, the involvement
of children in armed conflict, the elimination of racial discrimination,
the convention against torture, and the conventions on the status
of refugees and stateless persons, the status on the rights of
immigrant workers and the Statute on the International Criminal
Court. There are now Inter-American Conventions, African Conventions
and a European Convention as each seeks to fulfil its obligations
under the Universal Declaration. It is not easy for states across
the world to agree minimum standards on all these issues and yet
it has been done.
European states moved very early to
adopt the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms in 1950. It was a creature of the Council
of Europe, predating the European Union. The European Convention
has formed the basis of our Human Rights Law since then. Those
rights are more limited than the range of rights contained in
the Universal Declaration. They are the rights which Parliament
incorporated into law when it passed the Human Rights Act 1998,
which came into effect in October 2000. Whilst previously our
rights under the European Convention were only actionable against
the State in the European Court of Human Rights, now they are
actionable in our own courts. Where previously a Human Rights
case involved a long journey to Strasbourg and litigation which
might last ten years or more, the Human Rights Act gave us all
the right to pursue our Human Rights in our own local courts.
Those who are calling for the repeal of the Human Rights Act will
deprive us of the right to bring cases in our own courts, sending
us back on the long journey to Strasbourg, unless they enact a
replacement act which gives us the same rights to bring action
in our own courts.
So where are we now in terms of our
Convention rights? The Universal Declaration was very clear
"Whereas Member States have pledged
themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations,
the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human
rights and fundamental freedoms.
Whereas a common undersatnding of these
rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full
realization of this pledge."
The ideal of the Universal Declaration
of a world in which Human Rights would be respected has not been
achieved. There are major problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur,
Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel and Palestine
to name but a few. There have been 63 UN peacekeeping operations
since 1948. There are currently 16 peace-keeping operation involving
110,00 troops.[12]
UN statistics indicate that, as at Ocober 2008, the United Kingdom
had 336 personnel engaged on such operations. In addition to this,
of course, we have our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For almost forty years the UK has had its own counter-terrorist
operations.
What happened during the Northern Ireland
conflict is widely talked about, but not necessarily widely understood.
Whilst the various paramilitary factions were engaged in a campaign
of murder and maiming and destruction of our property and infrastructure,
the United Kingdom sought to contain the conflict. Some of the
methods used by some agents of the State were undoubtedly counter-productive
and inconsistent with the Human Rights obligations to which the
United Kingdom had subscribed, and indeed, on occasion, with the
law, others were underpinned by derogations from the Conventions.
There are particular strategies which,
in retrospect, can be seen to have had a very significant impact
not just on people's human rights but also on the fight against
terror. On 09 August 1972 security forces entered Republican areas
of Northern Ireland, taking indiscriminately, it seems, men aged
from 17 years old. 1981 individuals were interned - 107 Protestant,
1874 Catholic. Some of them were subject to what was at the very
least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to try and get information
out of them, and they were held, imprisoned but neither awaiting
trial nor convicted, for up to three years. The sheer injustice
of internment, and its economic and social consequences caused
massive resentment, generated huge resistance to the law and are
widely thought to have strengthened the position of the IRA across
Northern Ireland. Detention without trial is a very dangerous
process. The decision of Parliament, in October last, not to extend
the period within which people can be held for questioning under
the Counter-Terrorism Bill clearly reflected what we have learned
over the years.
The Government of the United States
is now operating a process of internment without any proper legal
process or safeguards in Guantanamo Bay and other locations.
Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star
US general who is a professor of international security studies
at the West Point military academy, said in May 2004, "We're
probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram Airfield,
Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq."
In December 2007 he repeated the claim.
Amnesty International stated in its 2008 Report that, as at December
2007, there were 275 detainees still in Guantanamo.[13]
Allegations were made that prisoners were being transported on
rendition flights through UK airports. For a long time this was
denied, but in February 2008 the Government announced that they
had been misinformed by the United States and that two US flights
which had stopped over at British airports had been rendition
flights. The CIA had told the government that each plane contained
a single suspect and that neither of the men had been tortured.
During the early years of the Troubles
a number of techniques were used by state interrogators to secure
information from detainees - five of those techniques, wall standing,
hooding, noise, sleep deprivation, food and drink deprivation,
were routinely used. I have read the interview notes of some of
the people who were interviewed by the police during this period.
They are interesting. During lengthy interviews there is only
half a page of notes. It is recorded that the detainee said nothing.
Some of them may well have been trained so to do. This goes on
for several interviews. Suddenly during the third or fourth interview,
which is relatively short, fifty or sixty names are given by the
detainee, who also provided details of the extensive involvement
of those named individuals in proscribed organizations, so that
you would wonder whether so much specific information could have
been recorded in the time available.
Until 1975 officials denied that these
techniques, described by detainees, were used, referring to the
allegations of torture as IRA propaganda. They were not propaganda.
The European Commission for Human Rights announced that these
five techniques were used and amounted to torture. In a case was
brought against the United Kingdom by Ireland[14]
the European Court, whilst not finding torture, announced that
the techniques "undoubtedly amounted to inhuman or degrading
treatment" in breach of Article 3. On 8 February 1977 the
Attorney General on behalf of the UK announced in the European
Court that:
"The Government of the UK have
considered the question of the use of the five techniques with
very great care and with particular regard to Article 3 of the
Convention. They now give this unqualified undertaking that the
five techniques will not in any circumstances be re-introduced
as an aid to interrogation."
However, In March 2007 the judge presiding
over the court martial of seven UK military personnel charged
in connection with the torture and death in September 2003 of
a man called Baha Mousa, and the treatment of a eight Iraqi civilians
arrested and detained in A UK military base in Basra stated that
hooding detainees, keeping them in stress positions and depriving
them of sleep had become standard operating procedures within
the battalion responsible for detaining the men. Following a number
of court hearings including in the House of Lords, in March 2008
the then Defence Secretary, Des Browne, admitted substantive breaches
of the European Convention and Bob Ainsworth, Armed Forces Minister
apologised to the family of Baha Mousa and the eight other detainees.
On 10 July it was reported that the Government had agreed to pay
£2.83m to the family of Baha Mousa and to the other detainees.
The process of fighting terrorism demands
a great deal of governments. An honest and robust appraisal of
the strategies and failings of campaigns is however necessary.
The United Kingdom is proud of its commitment to Human Rights
but lessons must be learned from the past. That the findings of
2008 should be similar to the findings of 1977 is a cause for
concern.
As Justice William Brennan said of
the United States in 1987,[15]
"There is considerably less to
be proud of and a good deal to be embarrassed about, when one
reflects on the shabby treatement civil liberties have received
in the United States during times of war and perceived threats
to national security... After each perceived crisis ended the
United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of
civil liberties was unnecessary. But it has proven unable to prevent
itself from repeating the error when the next crisis came along."
One of the principles of law is that
the State is responsible for the actions of its agents. My own
McCord Report published in January 2007[16]
articulated extensive failures by some police officers in Northern
Ireland to deal properly with a series of almost 100 very serious
crimes allegedly committed by terrorists who were also allegedly
informants. Despite extensive interviews officers were unable
to explain satisfactorily what had happened. The activities which
we investigated were numerous but included
- Failing to arrest
informants for crimes to which those informants had allegedly
confessed or to treat such informants as suspects of crime;
- Arresting informants
suspected of murder, subjecting them to a series of lengthy sham
interviews by their own intelligence handlers, and then releasing
them without charge; and
- Withholding from
police colleagues information about the location to which suspects
had fled after a murder, the consequence of which was that the
alleged murderers could not be detained immediately and opportunities
for evidence gathering were lost.
In the absence of satisfactory explanation,
using the definitions of collusion created by Lord Stevens in
his 3rd Report on the Finucane Investigation and Judge Cory in
his four Reports, I came to the conclusion that the activities
of some members of the RUC in protecting specific terrorist informants
from investigation and in failing to deal, as required by the
law, with a large number of situations, consitituted collusion.
The police kept their informants, but the level of crime in which
those informants were involved rose as they realised that they
would in all probability not be dealt with for such serious crime.
People stopped trying to assist the police, and confidence in
the police dropped as people saw the apparent impunity with which
some individuals were allowed to act.
The challenge to governments fighting
the war against terror is to remain within the law themselves.
As a State we have international interests and obligations. It
is acknowledged that the fight against terrorism, and engagement
in war is an extraordinarily complex process. Nevertheless it
must be a lawful process. The risk is that the processes used
by governments have the effect of growing that very terrorism
which they seek to destroy. It is consistent with all our obligations
under law and indeed with the Universal Declaration, that our
strategies and policies must be risk-assessed in many contexts
including an examination of the Human Rights implications for
any proposed action. The credibility of Government rests, inter
alia, on its compliance with the Rule of Law.
Perhaps the most contentious area in
England and Wales relates to the operation of the law relating
to the return of people who have no right to remain in the UK
to their countries of origin. The application of the law in this
field is enormously difficult. No one state is capable of absorbing
immigrants indefinitely and there have to be processes to control
immigration. Such processes must not result in people being sent
back to countries where they will be tortured or killed. Toady
in the House of Commons a meeting was held on the dossier "Outsourcing
Abuse," alleging ill-treatment of people being deported form
the UK, which has been presented to the Home Secretary. It is
now the subject of an independent review which I am conducting,
so I will make no further comment.
The United Kingdom has in many ways
led the world in legislation giving effect to the general principles
of the Universal Declaration. We abolished the death penalty in
1957. Our Police and Criminal Evidence Acts give some significant
protections to those arrested on suspicion of having committed
an offence, consistent with Article 6. Similarly our laws, designed
to ensure proper disclosure of material which may assist a defence
or undermine a prosecution are reflective of Article 6. Our Regulation
of Investigatory Powers Act makes provision for control over the
use of powers of surveillance and interception - an important
control over the invasion of privacy involved in such investigative
processes.
One of the things which has happened
however, has been an increasingly repressive regime of legislation
following the attacks in the United States on September 11 2001.
One example of this is the legislation amending the Police and
Criminal Evidence Act which gave the Police the power to retain
fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of persons who
were suspected, but not convicted of offences. Previously such
samples were disposed of. This has caused significant concern
among people who objected to the fact that their records were
retained together with those of criminals who had been convicted,
simply because they were a suspect, whether or not such suspicion
was ultimately justified. In addition to this there have been
concerns about the future sharing of the data bases with other
countries and the lack of accountability for the handling of the
data.
The concern of the populace about how
the state treats its personal data is not new. As Police Ombudsman
I was twice asked by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to
guarantee to members of the public that I would supervise and
ensure the destruction of all DNA samples and records collected
during two separate police investigations, so that the public
would co-operate with investigations in which the police were
trying to encourage mass donation of DNA samples. In both cases
the public were not responding to the police request to give samples,
despite police assurances that all non-relevant samples would
be destroyed. One case involved a murdered baby, who became known
as Baby Carrie, because she was found in Carryduff. The second
case involved the murder of an old woman. In both cases I agreed
to assist and, following the requisite action, we provided the
necessary assurances that all samples and all records relating
to them had been destroyed. Once the assurance was provided the
people responded to the police request.
On 4 December this year, the European
Court of Human Rights found in the case of S and Michael Marper
v UK that :
"the blanket and indiscriminate
nature of the powers of retention of the fingerprints, cellular
samples and DNA profiles of persons suspected but not convicted
of offences, as applied in the case of the present applicants,
fails to strike a fair balance between the competing public and
private interests and that the respondent State has overstepped
any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard. Accordingly,
the retention at issue constitutes a disproportionate interference
with the applicants' right to respect for private life and cannot
be regarded as necessary in a democratic society.
126 Accordingly, there has been a violation
of Article 8 of the Convention in the present case."[17]
The European Court in reaching this
judgment took account of the standards in other signatory states.
Now the United Kingdom will have to consider how it intends to
comply with the judgment.
Much of the Convention focuses on discrimination
issues, and our anti-discrimination and equality legislation is
wide-ranging and has forced change where change was very necessary,
giving remedies to those deprived of rights of access by reason
of disability and subjected to discrimination on grounds of disability,
gender, race etc. One could articulate multiple examples of legislation,
now part of our framework of government, which reflect the principles
of the Universal Declaration.
But much remains to be done. I am currently
chairing a statutory enquiry for the Equality and Human Rights
Commission, established in October 2007. That enquiry seeks to
establish the extent to which there is a human rights culture
in England and Wales (Scotland has, for some purposes its own
Human Rights Commission), the nature of barriers to the creation
of such a culture and evidence of good practice which might provide
models for future development. It is very clear that we are far
from having a human rights culture - it has long seemed to me
that this failure to understand the nature of human rights is
caused by our lack of knowledge. The enquiries conducted by the
JCHR have identified failure to understand and give effect to
human rights as a major challenge.
One of the interesting things which
one can observe following the public debate is that whilst there
is wide-scale ignorance of human rights, nevertheless there are
those who have used the principles of Human Rights to secure proper
treatment in their everyday life.
The Human Rights Act provides protection
where other sector specific legislation does not provide a remedy.
There are many such situations - we can point for example, to
a 12 year old sick little boy, the subject of a "Do Not Resuscitate"
order in hospital, whose parents successfully challenged the order,
and to an old couple who had reached the stage at which they could
no longer care for themselves. They were going to be placed in
separate homes but an assertion of their right to their home under
Article 8, and this finally resulted in them being placed together.
Similarly there are many examples of people living in inadequate
housing conditions, receiving inadequate medical or social care
who have been able to point to the Human Rights Act and gain proper
provision and care.
It has seemed to me that there is a
lack of understanding in the UK, not only of what we are talking
about when we refer to Human Rights, but also of the fact that
Human Rights belong to each of us. They are not the property of
the other - particularly when that other is "criminal"
a "terrorist" or indeed a "member of a particular
ethnic minority". People say that criminals, particularly
murderers should not have human rights. What they fail to appreciate
is that those who go to prison experience the balancing of their
rights against the rights of society and so they lose the right
of liberty, the right of living in their own home, the right to
privacy etc. What they do not lose is the right to be treated
and punished in accordance with the law. And Parliament makes
the law. It is Parliament which determines maximum penalties for
offences committed not judges. It is Parliament which identifies
in legislation the component parts of a criminal offence. It has
been Parliament which has legislated extensively to provide for
a fair trial. Judges only intervene where Parliament has not legislated
or there is an inconsistency in the legislation which makes it
incapable of application. Where there is a gap judges can develop
the law. Where Parliament disagrees with a judgment it can change
the law.
Human Rights can be asserted through
the courts of course. I was once challenged by way of judicial
review by police officers who were suspected of having committed
a particular crime. We wanted to interview them simultaneously
so that there would be no possibility of them conferring. They
claimed the right to use one particular solicitor, which would
have had the effect of forcing sequential interviews. They claimed
that the refusal to allow them to use the same solicitor would
deprive them of their right to a fair trial under Article 6 of
the European Convention. In the event the Judge declared that
my decision that it was necessary to interview them simultaneously
was reasonable in the circumstances, and that the Article 6 right
to a fair trial was not engaged prior to charge.
Even Article 2 which deals with the
right to life is subject to an exception which permits the use
of force which is no more than absolutely necessary
- defence of any
person from unlawful violence,
- to effect a lawful
arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained
- or in action
lawfully taken to quell a riot or insurrection.
One case which I dealt with involved
the death of a young man shot by police who were trying to stop
a car which police believed contained two men and a firearm which
was going to be used in a planned murder. When the car was brought
to a hard stop by police the driver refused to stop and despite
repeated warnings by police he continued to try and escape. In
so doing he knocked down a police officer who then lay in the
path of the car driven by the man who wanted to get away. He revved
the car repeatedly and tried to move forward despite police warnings,
heard by people in their homes, that if he did not stop they would
fire. A police officer shot him, to stop him driving over the
officer who was lying on the ground in the path of his car. He
died of his wounds. I found no breach of Article 2.
It is of course the case that there
are occasions when Human Rights Law is abused - there are also
many cases when its application is mis-reported. I think of the
case of Denis Nilson who was reported to have been given hardcore
pornographic material in his prison cell because it would be a
breach of his Human Rights to refuse his request for pornography.
This is nonsense. The request for a gay art book was refused,
a decision of the Prison Governor which he sought unsuccessfully
to challenge in court. Similarly there are will continue to be
cases in which a lack of proper understanding of Human Rights
Law will lead people to make the wrong decisions. The HM Inspectorate
of Probation Report on the case of Antony Rice who was released
from prison, and who murdered Naomi Bryant in 2005 stated that
Rice was released because the Parole Board did not have full knowledge
of all the facts relating to him, received over-optimistic reports
of his progress, had placed him in an open prison giving rise
to expectations of release, and allowed their public protection
considerations to be undermined by human rights considerations.
In cases such as this training and development is necessary to
address the deficit in those who must make these critical decisions,
and leadership is needed to articulate the facts of the case,
not empty, inaccurate rhetoric.
As the debate on the United Kingdom's
law on Human Rights and its attitude to its various Conventions
obligations continues, it seems to me that there is a need for
a new dialogue which uses the language of the Universal Declaration
and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That will be
a language which acknowledges that the recognition and assumption
of responsibilities are fundamental to citizenship; that Human
Rights are not all absolute: some are limited and some may be
qualified; which accurately reflects the extent and nature of
our human rights. We have had and will continue to have as a society
to balance competing rights - in Northern Ireland the conflict
between the right to march on the one hand and the right to protest
against those marches led to massive civil unrest and cost millions
of pounds. The debate was conducted more in terms of the assertion
of individual rights than the recognition of the rights of the
other, or any attempt to balance those rights. We have now got
to the stage where we recognise these as conflicting rights which
must be balanced.
The delicate process of balancing rights
will challenge us all in the days to come. As a state we must
consider the rights of asylum seekers, prisoners, the elderly,
the disabled, the sick, those who need access to appropriate education
etc. We must also develop our strategies in the war against global
crime and terror.
We must firstly ensure that we do not
lose those rights which were fought for so bravely and with such
determination after the Second World War. We must also initiate
a debate about what it means to belong to society and what obligations
and responsibilities attach to our citizenship. They are two separate
debates. The important thing is that we do not confuse them, but
that we create the necessary space for local and national debate,
and that clear leadership emerges to focus and enable our discussions
about how we ensure compliance with our obligation to ensure
the "promotion of universal respect for and observance of
human rights and fundamental freedoms" whilst growing the
realisation that rights and responsibilities are both critical
to fair and effective governance.
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