We are pleased to welcome this guest post by Mark Simpson, Ulster University. Mark can be reached at Simpson-M7@email.ulster.ac.uk. Denial of a widowed parent’s allowance because the claimant had not been married to her deceased partner unlawfully discriminated against her children, the Northern Ireland High Court has held. Siobhan McLaughlin judicially reviewed the refusal of bereavement payment […]
Category: Equality
Human Rights and Northern Ireland’s Abortion Law: Understanding the High Court Decision
We are delighted to welcome this guest post from Dr Kathryn McNeilly, Lecturer in Law at QUB. Kathryn can be reached on k.mcneilly@qub.ac.uk. On Monday the Northern Ireland High Court declared Northern Ireland’s prohibition of abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and in cases of sexual crime, up to the date when the foetus […]
Independence, Inadmissibility and Information Verification in the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval Proposals- Guest post by Professor Louise Mallinder
On 23 September 2015, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) published a policy paper outlining the measures to be included in the Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement) Bill that will be presented to Parliament on 12 October 2015. This Bill will legislate for a number of commitments made by the UK government in the Stormont House […]
Crisis at the borders: as EU leaders prepare to meet, call for open borders.
The following piece was written for a protest meeting held outside the EU Building in Belfast on 31st August 2015: Tell the EU to stop pushing refugees into the sea. We called for: open borders, the creation of safe passages, the treatment of refugees with dignity and respect, a stop to fueling the wars that […]
“Just another day in paradise”: the Calais situation
Screenshot from BBC Shorts: “DESPERATE TO GET THROUGH”, BBCshorts.tumblr.com, accessed 3rd August 2015. David Cameron proclaimed this week: “everything that can be done will be done to make sure our borders are secure and make sure that British holidaymakers are able to go on their holidays”. He was commenting as people are injured and dying […]
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 […]
United against racism – 8,000 march in most ethnically diverse demo ever seen in NI
Saturday afternoon in Belfast saw 8,000 people march together in the most ethnically diverse political demonstration ever seen in Northern Ireland. The Unite Against Racism march was organised by Amnesty International, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities (NICEM). The Northern Ireland Executive has let down members of […]
‘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 […]
Enforcing Equality: Training seminar, Friday 27 June 10am, UNISON Offices, Derry/ Londonderry
The Equality Coalition held a training seminar on Friday 4 April in UNISON for members of the Equality Coalition and other NGOs, community groups, voluntary organisations, policy officers and trade unionists. The session looked at how best to make complaints to ensure District Councils, Health Trusts, Education Boards, the Housing Executive, Government Departments etc abide […]
Stop and Search: legal certainty and dodgy consultation outcomes, two judgements of broader note
Last week Justice Treacy delivered judgements in two judicial reviews relating to the use of emergency-type stop and search powers under the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007, which will be of broader interest to other policy areas too. The first judgement, related to the legal certainty test under human rights law, i.e. whether […]