THE GOVERNMENT has announced plans to set up by November an expert group to determine how it should respond to the Irish abortion test case at the European Court of Human Rights last year.
The decision on this response was strongly criticised yesterday by pro-choice campaigners and civil liberties groups, who described it as an “inaction plan” that disregarded women’s human rights.
They had called for the Government to legislate immediately to clarify the circumstances when women can have an abortion, following the ruling in the so-called ABC case by the European Court of Human Rights last December.
In this case, which involved a woman with cancer, the court ruled Ireland had failed to properly implement the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1992 Supreme Court X case.
This judgment said there should be access to an abortion where a woman’s life is deemed to be at risk because of pregnancy, including the risk of suicide.
As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which is incorporated into Irish law, the Government must remedy any breaches of the convention.
Under procedures laid down by the Strasbourg court, the Government had six months to prepare a plan outlining the actions it had taken to execute the judgment and actions that it intended to take.
The Government published a three-page action plan yesterday, which stated that by November it would set up an “expert group, drawing on appropriate medical and legal expertise with a view to making recommendations to Government on how this matter should be properly addressed”.
“Ireland is committed to ensuring the judgment in this case is implemented expeditiously. The judgment highlights the lack of effective and accessible rules in relation to the application of Article 40.3.3 [of the Irish Constitution]. This must now be addressed, while, as the court also acknowledged, implementation of article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution on the protection of the unborn is a sensitive and complex task.”
The plan also confirmed the State has paid the woman in the ABC case, who won her action at the European court, €15,000 in damages. “Ireland considers that there are no further individual measures required,” it says.
However, Niall Behan, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, said the decision “delays the implementation of the ABC v Ireland judgment. When it comes to abortion to protect women’s life and health, the Government is in danger of falling into the same pattern of inaction adopted by past governments.”
Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties Mark Kelly said: “Taking 100 days to decide to establish an expert group by Christmas is evidence of inertia, not of action.”
“We will be writing to the execution of judgments department of the Council of Europe’s Directorate General of Human Rights to express our concerns, and to ensure that this attempt to place the implementation of this judgment on the long finger does not succeed,” he added.