The Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, has said he expects an initial rush of "spurious" claimants attempting to take advantage of the new Human Rights Act in the North. Mr Mallon said he had heard it said that the Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, could provide "a goldmine for cranks" but said he did not think this would be the case.
He said he did not doubt there would be a "first flush from those who are serial claimers", but added that the courts would ensure that they would soon realise they were wasting their time. Mr Mallon welcomed the Act, saying that it now gave people access to the protection of the Convention where they lived, without having to take cases to Strasbourg.
He said the Act "must become a seamless part of all that we do". Also speaking at the ceremony, the Northern Secretary said the North "now leads the world in the protection and promotion of human rights", and the Act was another pillar of the new society being built there. "The concept of human rights - and the need to protect and uphold them - has a special place in the hearts of the people" of the North, he said.
The people of the North had learned the hard way that there was nothing abstract about human rights, he said. "During the past 30 years of conflict thousands of men, women and children were denied their most basic right, their right to life." The First Minister said the core principles of the European Convention on Human Rights were "woven into the fabric" of the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Trimble said the challenge for the power-sharing administration was to ensure that respect for human rights became "an integral part of our thinking in all areas of policy and practice".
He pointed out that all measures passed by the Stormont Assembly and local councils were subject to the Act.
Meanwhile, the Alliance party welcomed the legislation, saying the day marked a "landmark in the protection of human rights" in the North. Sinn Fein gave the legislation a guarded welcome. But the party chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, warned that "harmful human rights legal precedents" could be set in courts by what he described as "a discredited judiciary".