People want Northern Ireland to have human rights protections, as should this newspaper

A letter from Kevin Hanratty of the Human Rights Consortium:
Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

I was sorry to read in your editorial yesterday that you think Northern Ireland’s existing human rights protections should be further undermined (‘London should not exclude NI in retreat from rights laws,’ April 5, see link below).

Thankfully the majority of people here disagree with you and want a future system of government that has the highest standards of rights.

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The plans you criticise for our own Human Rights Commission to ensure that rights protections do not diminish ‘as a result of the UK having left the EU’ are powers that were drafted and set in domestic law at Westminster by the UK Government via the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.

While the Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol continues to divide opinion regarding regulatory checks for goods moving from GB to NI, not even the UK government have complained to date about the fairly limited but important powers to ensure that NI doesn’t fall off a cliff edge as regards some of the rights protections we have inherited here as a result of our former membership of the EU.

If the UK wants to use our exit from the EU as an opportunity to move beyond those standards and create even higher levels of protection for individuals then there is no barrier to doing so. By all means they should fill their boots. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be their plan and even our own domestic protections like the Human Rights Act are now under threat.

It’s ironic that the News Letter should support the UK governments plan to scrap that important legislation given it is one of the main pieces of rights legislation that applies consistently across all parts of the UK. Other protections that have been extended to the rest of the UK like the Equality Act 2010 have unfortunately never been extended to Northern Ireland.

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That’s why the public across all sections of our community (80%+) and the majority of political parties here want our own Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

To protect existing rights and fill the gaps in current standards. We can no longer be left behind and want Northern Ireland to be a world leader when it comes to human rights. We would invite the News Letter to join us as an ally on that journey.

Kevin Hanratty, Director, Human Rights Consortium

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A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

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