Lawyers and human rights groups united yesterday in strongly criticising a proposed law aimed at incorporating into Irish law a major international human rights treaty.
An Oireachtas committee was told about the "grudging approach to rights" of the European Convention on Human Rights Bill 2001, which the nine groups want to see overhauled or replaced.
Mr Paddy Dillon Malone from the Bar Council told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights that the Bill provided a "minimalist" approach to the incorporation into domestic law of the convention, a 53-year-old international treaty which protects basic civil liberties.
He said the council, which represents barristers, believed the present Bill "requires not just minor amendments, but we believe the entire approach should be revisited".
The council wants to see the convention placed in a superior position to ordinary laws, through legislative incorporation which would "guarantee the primacy and superiority of the constitution". Mr Bill Shipsey from the council said there was "nothing to fear" about this approach. He said a "serious omission" of the Bill was exclusion of the courts from its purview as "an organ of the State".
Fianna Fáil TD, Mr Denis O'Donovan, said he would concede the Bill had a lot of inadequacies, but he was confident the legislation could be improved.