PROTESTANTS AND Catholics have markedly different views on the question of individual rights and the need to protect them, the McCluskey Civil Rights Summer School was told.
Dr John Kyle, a Belfast councillor and member of the Progressive Unionist Party, said the drive for consensus required an appreciation of that fact by each party to the debate.
Protestants, he said, place considerable reliance on personal morality, self-discipline and individual responsibility. He said it was important to note the Protestant belief that Christ did not fight for his rights, but laid them aside by giving up his own life for others.
Catholics, he said, view with equal validity the Christian need to protect the vulnerable, the marginalised and the disadvantaged, and a moral requirement for a collective approach. “Protestants can see rights as selfish,” he said. “They can lead to legal conflict and can heighten the role of un- elected judges, which may undermine the democratic process.”
SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said people who voted for the Belfast Agreement in both parts of Ireland in dual referendums had endorsed the need for an “expansive Bill of Rights”.
Calling such a measure “a shield to protect ordinary people in our society”, he said: “People should now be wary of any party that has changed its position with regards to the need for the Bill of Rights, especially those who did so only after coming into government . . . We in the SDLP are willing to join with the DUP or any other party in confronting injustice for any section of our society in genuine circumstances, but not in circumstances manipulated or contrived for some political advantage.”
DUP Assembly member Peter Weir told the debate, chaired by Prof Monica McWilliams, that rights could compete with other rights, and complement them.
He asked why there was no consensus on the Bill of Rights between unionists and nationalists and what could be done to achieve it. Unionists were “disengaged” from the discussion on human rights, and he alleged that proposals for a Bill had “gone far beyond” what was called for in the text of the Belfast Agreement.
Former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said there was a North-South dimension to human rights protection.
However, he questioned what expression it should be given, and how provisions in the two jurisdictions were to coexist.
“Is Northern Ireland to have the European Convention, the European Social Charter and an All-Island Charter, while the Republic has the Constitution, the European Convention, the European Social Charter and an All-Island Charter? What purpose is served by multiplying the number of legal instruments designed to achieve the same end?”
Ulster Unionist peer Lord John Laird doubted whether there was enough time left in “the fag end of this [British] government” to enact a special Bill for Northern Ireland.
He was deeply critical of the fact that the Irish Government favoured all manner of checks and balances in Northern Ireland, especially on policing, but which were not evident in the Republic.
“What has the Irish Government done since the Good Friday agreement to protect human rights for Protestants in the Republic?” he asked. “Where is quota recruitment for the Garda, where is the Policing Board for the Garda, where is parity of esteem for Ulster-Scots 11 years after the Agreement? Nothing has changed. Catch yourselves on and tidy up your own act first.”
Davy Adams, an Irish Times columnist and former loyalist representative, said both human rights commissions in Ireland should give more weight to “island-wide protection”. “Rights are only aspirations unless there is access to the courts to have them upheld,” he said, inquiring what would be the legal status on any all-Ireland charter on rights.
Susan McKay, chairwoman of the National Women’s Council, said there was “equality of disrespect for women” throughout Ireland, and complained there was an effective loss of 35 per cent of the council’s resources in real terms. Highlighting the lack of women on the debating panels at the summer school, she delivered an array of statistics relating to the lower status of women.