The threat to the Human Rights Act rumbles on, albeit, in muted tones compared to the fanfare of the Conservatives 2014 proposals and now juxtaposed by Michael Gove, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice’s tepid responses to the House of Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee earlier this week, in relation to their inquiry on […]
Category: Bill of Rights
British Bill of Rights could seem like ‘swaggering centralized power’…
…according to Baroness Kennedy during yesterday’s session of The EU Justice Sub Committee Inquiry on the Potential Repeal of the Human Rights Act on EU Law. The Committee heard evidence from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in relation to the proposed consultation on a British Bill of […]
Rights, Equality and Social Justice in a Cold Climate
We are delighted to welcome this guest post by Prof Colin Harvey, QUB School of Law and Human Rights Centre. Colin can be reached at c.harvey@qub.ac.uk. This is the first majority Conservative government at Westminster since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement 1998. That Agreement emerged under a Labour government that had constitutional reform firmly on its […]
Magna Carta 800th Anniversary
We are pleased to share this from the Human Rights Consortium. The 15th June 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta by King John in 1215. The charter has played a foundational role in the legal and political history of the UK and the modern shape of our human rights […]
Celebrating marriage equality and challenging the post-Ashers discourse
Northern Ireland is now duly surrounded by marriage equality, and is the last bastion of marriage inequality anywhere on these islands. In England and Wales the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 legislated for same sex marriage and commenced last year. The moving and resounding vote for marriage […]
Northern Ireland Human Rights Festival Programme Launched!
Today saw the launch of the programme for the 2014 Northern Ireland Human Rights Festival (NIHRF). The festival, which will take place from 8-13 December, consists of a series of events on a range of human rights issues from home and abroad in celebration of International Human Rights Day on 10 December . All events […]
The background to CAJs legal challenge to the Anti-Poverty Strategy
17 October marks UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This post sets out the background to the decision in the high court last month to grant CAJ leave to judicially review the Northern Ireland Executive over its alleged failure to adopt an anti poverty strategy based on objective need. Following the 2006 St […]
‘Shopping for Peter’ and the question of which racist remarks constitute advocacy of hatred
On Saturday hundreds of people lined up outside Tescos in Belfast city centre clutching ‘I am shopping for Peter’ posters, in a creative anti-racist protest against the First Minister‘s assertion, among other matters, that he would only trust Muslims “to go down to the shop for me, to give me the right change…”. Peter Robinson […]
Good Friday Agreement at 16: politicians must do better
Good Friday 1998 was a day of hope. After thirty years of violence, a new day seemed to be dawning as politicians embraced, then inked an agreement which held out the promise of lasting peace. As the Agreement turns sixteen, it is timely to check the politicians’ school report card to see if their implementation of the […]
An end to miscarriages of justice?
The above headline would be one usually welcomed by human rights activists here and throughout the world given the significance it could have: no more convictions on the basis of ‘confessions’ beaten out of suspects; an end to police corruption, an end to agent provocateurs fitting up persons, the list goes on. Yesterday however the […]
The Haass / O’Sullivan Proposed Agreement on parades and flags: analysis from a human rights perspective
CAJ made two submissions to the Haass process. The first (S419) related to advocating a single mechanism to deal with the legacy of the conflict. The other sets of issues dealt with by the Panel of Parties, including “Flags, symbols, emblems and related matters” and dealing with parades and protests, were dealt with in a […]
Mapping the Rollback
On December 9th, CAJ in collaboration with the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster and the Human Rights Centre Queens University Belfast are pleased to invite you to the launch of the conference report ‘Mapping the Rollback – Human Rights Provisions of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement 15 Years On’. The conference report covers CAJ’s ‘Mapping the […]