The Bill implementing the Belfast Agreement which was introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday has been criticised as "seriously flawed" by a Belfast-based human rights organisation.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice said the Northern Ireland Bill failed to implement commitments in the agreement on human rights and equality provisions.
A CAJ spokesman, Mr Martin O'Brien, said there were a number of concerns. A human rights commission, provided for in the agreement, was intended to have the power to initiate litigation on its own accord. The Bill as published does not give the commission this power, Mr O'Brien said.
The commission will not now be able to mount a judicial review application to challenge any particular policy or practice of government, he said. The Bill does allow for the human rights commission to take cases to court on behalf of individuals. "However the extent to which it will be able to do this will depend on the size of the budget the commission is given," Mr O'Brien said.
The committee is also critical of the fact that the commission has not been given powers to discover documents or compel witnesses in any inquiry it may wish to carry out. Without these powers, the commission would be severely limited in the kind of inquiries it could carry out, he said.
The British government is also criticised for going ahead with its plan of forming a single equality commission, amalgamating four existing bodies - the Fair Employment Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Northern Ireland Disability Council. Mr O'Brien said the bulk of representations made to government during a period of consultation on this proposal were opposed to it.