Jim Allister: Unionists seem set to empower a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, which will once again mark the Province out as different and a place apart

The House was not permitted to debate the motion even though Standing Orders place no prohibition on debate when it comes to the establishment of such a committee. Furthermore, there will be no follow-up motion to discuss the membership of this committee. The right to debate in a legislature before decisions are taken is fundamental.

Sadly, denial of such debate is what passes for democracy in Stormont.

We could well arrive at the perverse situation where an Ad Hoc Committee to deal with human rights issues could be peopled, in part, by human rights abusers. There may be put on this committee by Sinn Fein, without assembly debate, those who are human rights abusers by virtue of the fact that they are convicted terrorists.

Yet this was nodded through the assembly with only me dissenting when the establishment of the committee was put to an oral vote.

It is worth recalling how the DUP once described a separate Northern Ireland Bill of Rights as “an expensive and unnecessary grievance charter which would remove decisions from the people, waste public money and distance Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK”.

Yet this week every DUP MLA was happy to sit on his or her hands while we not only took a step towards the creation of just such a bill but opened the possibility of those who showed scant regard for the most fundamental human right — the right to life — taking up membership of the committee.

Given that the UK already has a Human Rights Act which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into our domestic litigation (and has had a Bill of Rights since 1689 as part of the Glorious Revolution) one is entitled to ask why unionists would empower a process which will once again mark NI out as different and a place apart. With unionists a minority on the committee the plan is obvious.

There is a fundamental issue of equal citizenship which a separate and different Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland would infringe.

This along with its exploitation as a conveyer belt of manufactured grievances, lavishly funded by legal aid, will swiftly convert it into an anti-state charter. Haven’t we seen enough of that already?