Deciding which rights have priority in the context of scarce resources is a matter for the political classes and not the courts, according to the Attorney General.
Mr Rory Brady SC was speaking yesterday at a conference called Realising Rights, organised in memory of leading senior counsel, Eamon Leahy, who died suddenly last year. The conference was organised by the Free Legal Advice Centres and the South Inner City Community Development Association.
Mr Brady said that rights came from a number of sources, including the Constitution, legislation, the EU and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), recently incorporated into Irish law.
"The framers [of the Constitution] set forward the guiding principles. They are aspirational and ambitious. They set out what the legislature should take account of. Some rights are enforceable legally. If the legislature decides to provide for rights, they become enforceable through the courts."
The incorporation of the ECHR obliged the State to act in a manner compatible with the Convention. This meant a significant expansion of the type of rights that could be guaranteed, beyond the predominantly civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
The obligation to legislate for EU directives also meant that there was a need to ensure that our laws in relation to matters such as social welfare rights matched up to the standards set by the European Commission, he said. More social and economic rights derived from there. The issue now was the difficult one of money and resources.
"This is a thorny issue. What happens when you have a series of rights all of which are competing for the limited financial resources of the State? These type of rights, and making them amenable, are a matter for the political classes and not the courts. If you are seeking your rights, it is not to courts you look but to the political leaders of your community, to the Government and the Dáil. The issue is the democratic accountability of the politicians to the people."
The exception to this was the rights that came from EU legislation, he said. Here arguments about resources and qualifications did not arise. It was important that people knew their rights and there should be greater Government support to community organisations that opened up access to this knowledge.