London should not exclude Northern Ireland in the needed retreat from ‘rights’ laws

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) says that if certain EU laws are changed “to improve the protection of human rights, then Northern Ireland must keep pace with those changes”.

The body then says it will consider launching court challenges if it believes that “rights protection [has] diminished as a result of the UK having left the EU”.

NI has enough publicly funded, politically motivated litigation against the state, for the supposed encroachment of questionable ‘rights,’ as it is.

How deplorable that a further such legal action is considered and floated so far in advance of any hint of such a failure to keep pace with EU quality laws.

The apparent mindset of the NIHRC on this matter flags up multiple issues of concern.

First, the way in which so few commentators, politicians or lawyers in Northern Ireland have expressed worries about the sort of fundamental constraints that have begun to be imposed on government due to activist interpretations of ‘rights’.

This local indifference is in contrast to London, where a range of influential legal and political figures have long come to see how the European Convention on Human Rights is being used today in ways that were not foreseen when it was written, such as to thwart UK efforts to suppress terrorism.

While many such contested ‘rights’ have emerged independent of the EU, nonetheless the ability to diverge from such rights is part of the spirit of Brexit and its opportunities.

It is thus to be hoped that Conservative government does indeed scrap the Human Rights Act, and extends that scrapping to Northern Ireland. Also that no Bill of Rights specific to NI is introduced here.

Separate bases for rights legislation on either side of the Irish Sea would be yet another step towards all island policy making.

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