A bill to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into Irish law will be published in this Dail session, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, told a conference at the weekend.
The Human Rights Bill has some remaining details to be "teased out before a draft Bill can be finalised and presented to the Government for its approval prior to its publication". The Minister said it would be presented to the Cabinet in the "next three to four weeks".
"I sincerely hope the legislation will be in place before the end of the summer," he said.
"We are trying to marry two very different systems of law into a coherent and effective code of protection of human rights which will operate at both the Constitutional and sub-Constitutional levels".
Once incorporated in Irish legislation, the rights guaranteed in the convention can be invoked by citizens in court actions against the State or against other citizens.
Previously, citizens who wished to vindicate their rights under the convention had to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and could do so only after exhausting all domestic remedies.
The push for incorporation arises from the Belfast Agreement, where the Government undertook "to further examine the incorporation of the European convention".
The Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, told the conference the incorporation of the convention might not be as dramatic as some proclaim. The transformation would certainly be less dramatic than that which was unfolding in the UK, he said. The convention became part of British law last October.
Most of the rights outlined in the convention were already in place in the Irish Constitution, the conference heard.
"I do not think it is either vainglorious or smug to say that, in general, Irish constitutional law provides a higher degree of protection to the individual than that which exists in most member states of the European Convention on Human Rights," said Mr McDowell.
Mr O'Donoghue said the 1998 Human Rights Act in the UK, which provided for the incorporation of the convention into its domestic law, could be used as a comparison of how convention legislation could be incorporated into domestic law in the State.
While he did not want to suggest the UK Act was the "high water mark of our ambition", the Minister said if the State was to base its approach on the UK model, convention rights would be given on the basis of three proposals.
First, legislation should be interpreted "in a manner which is compatible with convention rights".
Second, only the superior courts should be able to invalidate primary legislation incompatible with the convention.
And third, defined institutions of the State must act in a way compatible with the convention. If they failed to meet the standard, proceedings could be brought by the victim.
The State is last of the 41 member states of the Council of Europe to incorporate the convention into domestic law.