Sir, - Arising from the Belfast Agreement, an independent new body, the Human Rights Commission, is now being established by the Government under the recently-enacted Human Rights Commission Act. The commission will be concerned with the "promotion and continued development of the human rights agenda in the broadest sense".
"Human rights" are stated by the Act to be those supported by the Irish Constitution, and by "any agreement, treaty or convention to which the State is a party". There are 30 such agreements, none of which has been placed before the people.
The commission will, among other methods, operate by bringing (or supporting) test cases before the courts. In this way, new law will effectively be established by the courts, or pressure brought to bear on the legislature to do so.The changes are intended to remove a fundamental area of lawmaking that relating to personal rights - from the legislature (and the people), and to place it in the hands of unelected and unaccountable government appointees. The creation of new law within the Constitution is the responsibility of the legislators; constitutional change is the prerogative of the people.
These are truly momentous changes. They are, for the most part, without informed consent, and hence, without proper authority from the people. It would have taken a very careful reading indeed of the Belfast Agreement, plus some imagination, for any citizen to have forecast the outcome that is now taking shape. That is not good enough.
The Human Rights Commission Act is a profoundly undemocratic and, in my view, illegal, enactment. - Yours, etc.
Donal O'Driscoll
Dargle Road,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.