South and East Belfast Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Sinn Féin rejects the NIO consultation document on a proposed Bill of Rights -Parker

Published: 13 February, 2010

Speaking at a Human Rights conference at Queens University last week, Vincent Parker, Balmoral Representative and Sinn Fein Head of Equality and Human Rights, said,

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"The NIO have disrespectfully disregarded the views of political and civic society that overwhelmingly supported a strong and fully inclusive Bill of Rights."

"In particular, the NIO consultation has chosen to ignore the advice from both the Bill of Rights Forum and the Human Rights Commission that social and economic rights must be central to any Bill of Rights for the North."

Speaking at the Human Rights Centre at Queens, with representatives of other political parties and civic society, chaired by the Equality Commission, on the proposed Bill of Rights, Mr. Parker said,

"After 11 years, the British Government finally published a consultation paper on one of it's key unfulfilled commitments arising from the Good Friday Agreement, "to constitute a Bill of Rights".

"The British Government's proposals for a Bill of Rights-currently out to public consultation- ignore the need to include economic and social protections or to address the structural inequalities that reflect our particular social circumstances. This ignores the advice of the Bill of Rights forum and the Human Rights Commission."

" At the Bill of Rights Forum, Sinn Féin endorsed a number of such rights that would make a real and positive impact on the lives of those in greatest need.

"Structural socio-economic discriminations and inequalities were contributing factors to the conflict here, not least on issues such as employment and housing.

"The routine violation of civil, political, economic and social rights - gerrymandering, right to housing, right to a job, internment and the long term suspension of many rights under emergency provisions helped exacerbate and prolong the conflict.

"The British government has systematically failed to eradicate the structural inequalities at the heart of the six counties. We still see it in the institutional resistance over the last decade to the equality and human rights elements of the Good Friday Agreement."

Mr Parker went on to outline the way forward for this process,

"It is precisely that past which should compel those of us who are intent on building a better future, to continue to demand that legally enforceable economic and social rights - which go above and beyond the current inadequate protections - are enshrined in any new Bill of Rights.

"A Bill of Rights should set the floor, and not the ceiling for guaranteeing rights in our society for generations to come.

"A Bill of Rights should be an expression of hope for a positive future, and in promoting reconciliation, tolerance, mutual trust, and the protection of the human rights of all the people living here, and the values of partnership, equality and mutual respect

"I would encourage all sections of the community to respond to the consultation paper and reject the approach the NIO has taken. We need a Bill of Rights that is worthy of the aspiration of all in our communities for a rights based society, that offers protections for the most vulnerable, that respects the diversity of our community and that has equality at its very core." CRÍOCH