Justice 1 Committee, 05 Jun 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 5, 2001

Official Report 211KB pdf

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Proposed Human Rights Commission for Scotland

The third item on our agenda is the matter of a human rights commission for Scotland. We will take evidence from Professor Brice Dickson, who is the chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. I thank Professor Dickson for coming across from Northern Ireland to give evidence.

Thank you for the invitation to be here. Members of the committee will have received a three-page document from me summarising the work of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which is now in its third year. The summary does not convey the overall impact of the commission in Northern Ireland, which has been significant. The potential for that impact to continue is great.

Although the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is a product of the Belfast, or Good Friday, agreement, it should not be assumed that its focus is on matters relating to the conflict in Northern Ireland. At many of the meetings we have had in Northern Ireland, there has been no mention at all of the police, prisons, emergency laws, Diplock courts or paramilitary abuses. Instead, people have wanted to discuss issues such as education rights, access to health care, safe living conditions, environmental issues, the rights of people with a disability, planning matters and so on. Complaints against professionals are rife, especially complaints against legal and medical professionals.

We have striven to make public authorities aware of their duties, as well as to make individuals aware of their rights. For example, we have engaged the churches on whether human rights are the new religion in Northern Ireland. We had to explain that creating a human rights culture is not synonymous with promoting selfishness and greed, and nor are we encouraging litigation for litigation's sake. In fact, we seek to prevent grievances arising in the first place.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission acknowledges that bodies other than state bodies—such as paramilitary organisations, corporations, newspapers, trade unions and churches—and even individuals in their home, for example, can abuse human rights. We are in favour of the horizontal application of human rights—to use the jargon.

Every society should have a human rights commission to help the Government comply with its international obligations and to assist individuals to assert their entitlement to basic rights. All individuals deserve such assistance, regardless of their antecedents. A human rights commission is not in the popularity stakes. It must be willing to stand up for the human rights of unsavoury characters. The commission must be a watchdog, but also a bit of a terrier—snapping at the heels of those who wield power over others.

I repeat that I am grateful for the opportunity to present evidence to the committee today. I affirm the strong support of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission for the establishment of a separate human rights commission for Scotland.

We are aware that the commission was set up as part of the Good Friday agreement. What benefits has the commission brought to Northern Ireland that would be applicable here if such a commission were set up in Scotland?

First, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has done much work proofing legislation that has come before the Northern Ireland Assembly and legislation that has come before Westminster that applies in Northern Ireland. We have indicated several times possible inconsistencies between the draft legislation and the European convention on human rights and other international human rights standards. We have given committees of the Assembly evidence about proposed laws and policy initiatives.

Secondly, we have been engaged in casework and have helped individuals who have come to us for assistance. We have taken cases in our own name and, until we were recently deprived of the power by a court decision, we applied to intervene in court cases to give the court the benefit of our views on relevant human rights standards.

Thirdly, our education work is transferable to other jurisdictions. We have informed people about not only the Human Rights Act 2000, but other laws and policies that deal with human rights. We have a duty to advise the Government on what should be contained in a bill of rights for Northern Ireland and have received many views from quite ordinary people who, otherwise, would have no real interest in legal matters. They have told us how their rights in connection with public authorities and others could be enhanced. All such functions are transferable.

We note that the commission has a grant of £750,000 per annum. What structure has that money set up? Is it a sufficient sum for the purpose?

I can answer the second part of the question easily and quickly. No, that sum is not sufficient. We continue to be in a funding crisis, especially with regard to the financing of litigation. We operate through committees that are organised more or less in line with the functions outlined in the paper that I sent members in advance. Four or five commissioners sit on the committees, which are serviced by one or two members of staff.

The part-time commissioners, apart from me—I am a full-time commissioner—are hands-on, perhaps because we are a new institution with a high profile in Northern Ireland. The commissioners are keen to participate actively in the commission's work, perhaps more so than commissioners in other quangos. Our staff, some of whom are legally qualified, contribute hugely to the work of the commission.

How many commissioners and staff do you have?

At present, we have nine commissioners. I am a full-time commissioner and the other eight are commissioners one day a week. We have 13 members of staff, who cover 11 posts—two posts are job-shared.

First of all, I extend a warm welcome to Brice Dickson. I had the pleasure of visiting the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission just over a year ago and found my visit very informative.

When you have proofed legislation being considered by the Northern Ireland Assembly or by Westminster and have recommended that changes should be made, what impact have you had?

I regret to say that our impact has been minimal. The Executive Committee in Belfast and the Government at Westminster would say that that is because the relevant legislation is already proofed for compatibility with the ECHR before it is sent to us. Although we might raise questions about aspects of legislation, the response that we usually get is, "Well, we considered that but our view is different. If such a case were to go to court, the legislation would be considered to be compatible with the convention."

We did a lot of work on the Terrorism Bill as it passed through Westminster and on the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill. However, in almost every case, the amendments that we suggested were not accepted, either in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords.

What about legislation in the Assembly?

We have had less work to do on legislation in the Assembly, partly because there has not been much of it. Such legislation as there has been has not had huge human rights implications. I can think of only one bill where we differed with the view of the Speaker's legal advisers on the compatibility of a provision. The bill concerned the powers of the fisheries inspectorate to go on to boats and to confiscate equipment and so on. We considered those powers to be, at least arguably, contrary to the ECHR. However, the Speaker's office and the Assembly as a whole took the opposite view.

Other legislation is going through and has not yet been determined. We do not know whether our recommendations have been accepted.

I am conscious that, if a Scottish human rights commission had concerns about a piece of legislation going through Westminster that would have an impact on Scotland, we could find ourselves in a similar position. We could make recommendations and express concerns, but Westminster might take a different view. Is there a way in which we could address that situation? The obvious suggestion would be the establishment of a human rights commission that would also cover Westminster legislation. However, is there another way in which we could address that problem?

I am not sure that it would be easy to address that situation.

I am not totally au fait with the Scottish system, but in Northern Ireland, if a draft order in council is being prepared under the Northern Ireland Act 1998—that is the way in which direct rule operates—it must be considered by a committee of the Assembly in Belfast. A report is then sent to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who, in turn, must lay it before Parliament in London.

The Human Rights Commission has had an input into the Assembly committee reports on two or three of those draft orders and on the Proceeds of Crime Bill. When the committee reports were prepared the committee accepted our points in two of three instances and passed them on to the secretary of state. However, in one instance in which the draft order had already been passed, Parliament in London did not agree with the Assembly committee's recommendations and in another two cases, we are still waiting to hear whether Parliament will agree with the relevant committee's recommendations. We are not hopeful that Parliament will agree with those recommendations. The fact that there is such a large majority in Westminster means that the Government can push through the legislation that it wants, despite the caveats that are expressed by the Human Rights Commission.

We note that commissioners were appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Are you content that that is the best appointments process for commissioners?

No, I am not convinced. In fact, it is questionable whether such an appointments system complies with the United Nations principles on national human rights institutions—the so-called Paris principles.

Under the Northern Irish system, an advert was placed in newspapers so that people could get the forms to see what criteria they would be measured against. People applied and were interviewed by a panel, which consisted of two senior civil servants and a civil service commissioner. The panel's recommendations were then given to the secretary of state. I happen to know that the secretary of state at that time, Dr Mowlam, accepted all the panel's recommendations and did not interfere with the choice at all.

A better system would have been for Parliament, or the Government together with representatives of Opposition parties, to have selected the commissioners. That is a surer way of ensuring that there is no cronyism or nepotism.

Has the current appointments mechanism been successful in obtaining representation of the whole community for which the commission has responsibility?

It is fair to say that there has been some controversy about that in Northern Ireland. I should add that that is not of the commission's own doing; we were not responsible for our own appointments. As chief commissioner, I had no say—nor did I want one—in the appointment of the other commissioners.

As soon as we were appointed, the unionist community expressed serious reservations about the adequacy of the unionist representation on the commission. Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the commission must be representative of society in Northern Ireland. The answer to that criticism is that no one on the commission is active in nationalist politics. Although it is true that two of the commissioners used to be active, one left to join a different party five years ago—and, in any event, she has now, for personal reasons, resigned her post from the commission—and the other man left the nationalist party 25 years ago. However, as members may know, memories are long in Northern Ireland.

They seem to go back hundreds of years.

I might add that, after the resignation of one commissioner, adverts were placed for one or more replacements. I am told that 520 individuals applied for the replacement post, which is three times as many as applied for the commission as a whole the first time round. That at least indicates that the commission has a high profile and that significant numbers of people are interested in serving on it—constructively, I hope.

I will move on to a different area. How important is it that commissioners have expertise in human rights legislation? Is it more important to get representation from different groups across society? Obviously, there is a balance.

Yes, there is a balance. It is important that there should be some people on the commission who have expertise on the legal dimension to human rights protection, especially the international legal dimension. However, it is equally important that there are on the commission people who have experience of the voluntary, community, and statutory or political sectors, because they will be more aware of what is pragmatic and realistic. They might have just as strong a commitment to the protection of human rights but be unable to make the legal arguments in favour of human rights.

We have tried hard to avoid dividing the commission between those who have a legal background and those who do not. I think that that has worked reasonably well. For example, on the casework committee, which has five commissioners who decide which cases to fund, three of us have a legal background and two do not, but that committee works more successfully than any of our other committees.

Do the numbers on the other committees tend to be less evenly balanced?

No, not necessarily. I did not mean to imply that. The casework committee by definition deals with legal matters, yet the input of the non-lawyers to the discussions in the casework committee is always extremely helpful. We could not really do without that perspective.

I want to ask about your functions and powers. A minute or two ago you said that you have a rising profile in Northern Ireland. How has that occurred? Have you been working to raise awareness of human rights issues? If so, there might be lessons for us to learn about educating public bodies and the wider public. How can that be done most effectively?

We obtain a high public profile in at least two ways. We are proactive in publishing information and research reports.

Last week, for example, we issued two research reports. One was on whether the criteria that are applied by boards of governors of schools when deciding which children to select for admission are consistent with human rights or equality standards. We timed the publication of that report to coincide with the date on which letters were sent out to parents telling them which schools their children were being selected for at post-primary level. Understandably, the report received a great deal of publicity and produced a considerable number of phone calls to the commission.

The second report was on the way in which the police record the use of plastic baton rounds in Northern Ireland. We timed that to appear on the day when a new type of plastic baton round was introduced. That is a controversial topic anyway, and the report received a great deal of publicity.

The other way in which we raise our profile is by reacting to approaches that are made to us by the media and others. Perhaps Northern Ireland is slightly different in that respect. The newspapers and the broadcasting media have a lot to say, make many programmes and write a great deal about troubles-related issues. They often come to the commission for a perspective on the release of prisoners or some aspect of the criminal justice system that happens to be in the public eye at the time.

Given that we do not have that background in our society, how would we transfer what you are doing to Scotland? What could we usefully copy?

If there were a human rights commission in Scotland, it would want to say a great deal about the way in which the criminal justice system operates and the way in which complaints against the legal profession are handled—the topic that the committee was just considering. It would also want to address the social and economic issues that give rise to claims of rights—the right to access to health, the right of people with disabilities to employment and the right to education. We find that the general public and the media want us to comment on those issues, which have a human rights dimension. We profess to have an expertise in the international standards for issues of that sort.

Children's rights are a matter of particular concern. Children who have suffered neglect or who have become involved in the criminal justice system are often in the news. There are many international standards relevant to the protection of children, on which we are often asked to, and do, comment.

How would you respond to someone in Scotland who said that two years ago for the first time we elected a Parliament made up of 129 civil rights commissioners? Why do we need another body to do the job that they should be doing?

The answer to that is twofold. First, members of the Scottish Parliament have a great deal to do and cannot always be specialists in human rights. When they scrutinise legislation, they may not be aware of its human rights implications.

Secondly, even elected politicians—perhaps especially elected politicians—must be kept in check and made aware of the constraints that international human rights law places on them. In our dealings with politicians we have encountered not only the natural antipathy towards lawyers that politicians tend to feel, but particular antipathy towards human rights lawyers.

There is a feeling among some political parties that human rights lawyers think that they can rule the world and restrict what elected politicians can do and what they can promise in their manifestos. However, human rights lawyers do not profess to go that far; they simply point out to the politicians that there are certain bottom lines below which they must not go when they distribute resources. For example, they could not decide to do away with the proper facilities for prisoners or people who are detained by the police. They might like to make that public expenditure choice, but it would be unlawful under international law. There are other similar restraints of which elected politicians need to be reminded and it is part of the job of a human rights commission to do that.

We will return to your relationship with politicians in a wee while. I would like to ask you more about your casework. You said that people are more interested in disability rights than they are in Diplock courts. How do you prioritise the use of your resources and decide which cases to support, and how are applications for assistance processed? Do you prioritise any right over another?

The criteria whereby we decide whether to grant assistance are laid down partly in the legislation governing us—section 70 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998—and they are almost identical to the criteria in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976 for gender and race discrimination in Great Britain. We have amplified those criteria slightly because we are aware that we must be selective in the cases that we support. Although we are conscious of the need not to fetter our discretion, thereby leaving ourselves open to judicial review, we have indicated clearly, through a series of cumulative criteria, what sorts of cases we might fund.

One of those additional criteria relates to the strategic plan that we drew up last year, in which we indicated the types of areas on which we wanted to focus for the next two years at least. Those areas include the rights of young people, the rights of older people, the rights of prisoners and ex-prisoners, and the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. That is only one indicator of the preference that we might have for a case. If a case were brought to us that raised a novel point that we had not anticipated, which we thought would have a significant impact in Northern Ireland as a whole, it is likely that we would be sympathetic towards supporting it.

An issue that arose unexpectedly—although I know that it has arisen already in Scotland—was the compatibility of the planning legislation with the European convention on human rights. We took the strategic decision to obtain a legal opinion on the compatibility of the full set of planning laws with the ECHR and to make that available to anyone who came to us with a specific case rather than to fund a case through the courts. We try to manage the way in which cases come to us in that manner.

What are your statistics on cases that you turn away—people who apply to you but whose cases you cannot take up? Are you able to deal with the cases of only a small proportion of those who apply?

We are able to help nearly everyone who comes to us. That help usually consists of telling them where they can get more specific advice—perhaps from the police ombudsman or the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, or from a solicitor, if it is a matter for private law. Only about 5 per cent of the inquiries that we receive lead to applications to the casework committee for assistance.

You asked about our process for dealing with applications. The casework committee sits monthly—sometimes more frequently—to assess cases that are prepared for it by our caseworkers, using the criteria that I just mentioned. Ultimately, only about 5 per cent of the cases are brought to us and only about a third or even a quarter of those cases are granted assistance. The cases for which assistance is granted represents only a small fraction of the total number of inquiries.

So you choose cases that you think would make a real difference.

We try to, subject to the vagaries of litigation.

How do you carry out your advisory work on proposed legislation? You have talked about the fact that you have tried to promote the ECHR, perhaps without much success, at Westminster, and possibly the Northern Ireland Assembly, although I was not quite sure about your evidence on that. What mechanisms do you have in place for your advisory work on proposed legislation and how do you interact with the Assembly?

In answering that, it is important that I distinguish between the Assembly process and the Westminster process. Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the Speaker of the Assembly is obliged to send us copies of all new legislation that is introduced into the Assembly. We have the opportunity to send our comments on that to the Speaker and/or the chairperson of the relevant Assembly committee that is dealing with the bill; we choose to do both. Unfortunately, the Assembly has not adopted the practice that I believe is now common in Scotland of pre-legislative scrutiny of bills. However, if we get a whiff of draft legislation and what it might be saying before it is introduced into the Assembly, we make our views known through letters to the members of the Assembly.

On the secondary legislation that goes through the Assembly, we have yet to establish a foolproof system for filtering pieces of secondary legislation that might have human rights consequences. Just last week, I was discussing with the Speaker of the Assembly how we might improve our mechanisms.

On Westminster legislation, I am sorry to have to say that the Government departments, including the Northern Ireland Office and the Home Office, tend to forget that we exist. They sometimes do not include us in consultations. For example, they recently issued five codes of practice under the Terrorism Act 2000 but remembered to send only two of them to us for comment prior to their being affirmed in Parliament. We have to rely on our own researchers to keep an eye on what is coming down the pipe.

When we become aware of draft legislation, one of our researchers prepares a paper on the legislation. That is then reviewed by a committee of the commission and endorsed by the full commission at its next monthly meeting. The paper is then sent to the Parliament.

Do you find yourself under pressure of time?

Very much so. We are often unable to respond, although not so much to legislation, which we try to prioritise. We receive many consultation documents about potential legislation to which we do not have the time to respond, even though they are significant documents.

You said that the Speaker of the Assembly is obliged to forward to you any proposed legislation that goes before the Northern Ireland Assembly and that you received only two of the five codes of practice under the Terrorism Act 2000 because Westminster seemed to forget about you. My concern is that the same thing could happen with a Scottish human rights commission. I am conscious that the effectiveness of your role and of a Scottish human rights commission would be compromised if Westminster did not accept that we had commissions within our relative areas. Do you have a view on how that should be addressed and whether there should be some type of arrangement with Westminster departments to ensure that you are always consulted?

We have been pressing to establish memorandums of understanding or protocols with Government departments to ensure that we get early access to draft legislation. We have not yet finalised the memorandum of understanding with the Northern Ireland Office. I admit that that is mainly because of a delay at our end rather than at the NIO's end, although the comparable protocol with the Government departments in the Executive Committee in Belfast has been held up because of delays at their end rather than at our end.

That is probably the only way in which early access could be ensured, unless, when a Scottish human rights commission is set up, some kind of statutory obligation were placed on Government departments in London to provide copies to the commission in Scotland if legislation applied to Scotland. That would require amendment to existing legislation.

How receptive have Westminster departments been to the idea of a memorandum of understanding?

Our experience has been limited to the Northern Ireland Office, which has been very receptive to the idea. Of course, it envisaged the memorandum covering other aspects of the relationship between it and us—financial matters, publicity matters, and so on. Our difficulties have mainly been with the Home Office, with which we have not yet actively explored the possibility of establishing such a protocol.

As well as interacting at the level of legislation, you must obviously give advice on human rights to individual members. What sort of feedback have you had from individual Assembly members or Assembly committees on the value of what you are doing?

We have not had many approaches from individual Assembly members for advice on particular issues—or, indeed, any, that I can think of. I have appeared before five committees of the Assembly. On some of those occasions, the questioning has been quite hostile from some members. As you may appreciate, some members of the Assembly in Belfast do not approve of the existence of the Human Rights Commission. They take serious objection to the commission standing up for the rights of, for example, prisoners or suspected criminals. That is a philosophical difficulty that we constantly come up against. However, on the whole, the committees have been receptive and appreciative of the information that we have been able to provide for them.

When cases arise, or when legislation is on the horizon, are you proactive in informing individual members about the issues?

I do not think that we have been proactive in that sense, but we have been proactive in sending the comments that we have prepared on draft legislation to members of the relevant committees. We have just produced a report on how we think the standing orders of the Assembly could be amended to provide for better scrutiny of laws from a human rights point of view. That is being sent to all 108 members of the Assembly. Otherwise, our contact with the Assembly has mainly been through the Office of the Speaker and through the clerks—the principal clerk of bills, for example.

Would it be a good idea to get more involved on a one-to-one basis with members to brief them? I am wondering how a similar body might function in Scotland.

Our difficulty in trying to develop almost personal relationships with individual members is that we could risk being seen as partisan—precisely because some parties are more sympathetic to what we are doing than others. We must be strictly non-partisan. If we have been running events to which any Assembly members have been invited, we have tended to invite them all, knowing full well that very few will turn up. We have also dealt with parties through their own party offices rather than through their Assembly representatives. We have found that the parties are reluctant to come together to discuss human rights issues. They tend to want to be consulted separately on the issues.

I can see that you have a hard furrow to plough. I hope that the situation will not be the same here.

Do you consider whether existing legislation is compliant and do you proactively seek to reform laws that appear to infringe human rights rather than try to look into the future all the time?

We do that. We have produced a review of the existing law and the policy in practice affecting the rights of older people in Northern Ireland, for example, in relation to discrimination in access to health care. We have produced a report on the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. We have recently commissioned a report, which will be completed by the end of this year, on the rights of people who have or have had a mental illness. Many people who fall into that category have come to us in the past two or three years. We have been surprised at what appears to be a serious lack of protection for the rights of such people.

Has the existence of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission helped with the process of incorporating the European convention on human rights into domestic law?

I think that we have done that, although, because it was a coincidence that the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force at the same time as the Good Friday agreement, we were not set up specifically to do that. All three of the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland that we have had since we were established have said that they want the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to play a full part not just in the implementation of the Good Friday agreement, which I think is a good thing, but in helping Northern Ireland to be a model for human rights protection.

Given our troubled past, it would be appropriate if we were able to turn the situation around and become a model for other societies, particularly divided societies. I detect political support in that sense, even if it is lacking in the parliamentary sense in Westminster.

That is a good aspiration. If you had additional functions and powers, could you more quickly fulfil the potential that you see? What additional powers and functions would you like to have?

We could be much more effective if we had more powers and functions. When the bill that established us was going through Parliament in 1998, the Government compromised on various amendments by saying that, although the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was not going to get certain powers at once, it would be able to produce a report after two years on the subject of the ways in which extra powers would increase its effectiveness. That report was published in February and I will make a copy available to the committee.

The report contains 25 recommendations for increased powers, three of which I will highlight. There is the old question of resources—we could do a lot more if we had more money. Secondly, we could do a lot more if we had the power to compel people and organisations to produce evidence for us. For example, when we investigated the juvenile justice centres in Northern Ireland, we were denied access to important documentation, which made it difficult for us to carry out a proper objective assessment of whether the rights of children are being protected. We need that power to bring our powers into line with these that an ombudsman has. Thirdly, we would like the power to apply to a court to intervene as a third party to make the court aware of the human rights dimensions of the case. That right has been denied to us by the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland and we are petitioning the House of Lords for leave to appeal that decision. If we do not win that appeal, we would like the Government to amend the legislation to give us the power.

You referred to the resources. A budget of £750,000 will not go far if you are funding cases. Living in the real world and given the constraints on budgets, what kind of budget do you think would be realistic for a population the size of that of Northern Ireland?

Things are slightly askew at the moment, because our focus this year and next is a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. That is a time-limited function for which we would like a lot more money. We would like, for example, to provide a copy of the draft bill of rights to every household in Northern Ireland, but that would cost £150,000. We have put in a special bid to the Northern Ireland Office for extra money just for the bill of rights work.

Leaving that aside, we could probably achieve what we would like to achieve with something approaching double the amount of money that we have at the moment—£1.5 million. With that, we could clear the backlog of cases—we have a huge backlog to deal with—we could be much more proactive in our education work and we could be more efficient in the provision of information to Assembly members and parliamentarians.

We have touched on the general aspect of the casework that the commission undertakes. Do you have specific provisions for human rights issues for children? Does the commission have such a thing at the moment?

One of our commissioners is a specialist in children's rights. She is the director of the Children's Law Centre in Belfast. We strive not just to protect the rights of children but to include children in the consultation processes that we conduct. When we were consulting on what should be in our strategic plan and what should be in our bill of rights, we set up special events and meetings with and for children—sometimes through the auspices of other organisations—to collect their views. We have had some very interesting, thought-provoking and artistic contributions from young people on the bill of rights. Amnesty International collaborated with us in running a schools competition, for example. Children in care were brought together by the Children's Law Centre and, I think, Save the Children to produce moving recommendations to us as to how children in their position could be better protected in society.

There is a school of thought that there might be a need for independent children's rights commissioners, which some countries have. Do you think that there is such a need or that children's rights could be adequately dealt with under a human rights commission?

Interestingly, there is a move at the moment to create a children's commissioner for Northern Ireland. It is one of the few things—I should not say that—one of the things that the two main parties in Northern Ireland agree on. A bill is due to be introduced in the next session. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission's view is that, if such a commissioner can be established, we would welcome it very much. We would like that person or body to have more extensive powers than we have at the moment. I refer again to the power to compel the production of evidence, for example.

Our remit is so wide that we would have no objection to one particular aspect of our work being separated out and given to another body, as it is already for complaints against the police or complaints of gender or religious discrimination. We have quite enough to be getting on with in terms of other aspects of human rights, especially within the criminal justice system.

I am conscious that we have the Disability Rights Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality, a proposed children's rights commissioner for Northern Ireland and a Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. You are obviously now used to having to interact with a number of other commissions and Government agencies. What has been your experience of trying to link up with those other organisations? Is there a way in which the system could be streamlined and some of the commissions brought closer to together?

My experience has been that the various relationships between the commissions, of which there are probably more in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in these islands, have worked well. We have a good memorandum of understanding with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, which merges the prior anti-discrimination bodies in Northern Ireland. That functions very effectively.

Speaking personally, we have too many quangos of that type in the small jurisdiction of Northern Ireland. I understand and sympathise with the scepticism that some members of the public express about the proliferation of such bodies, but they can be excused if they work effectively and do not overlap with each other and waste public money. Effectiveness is the key criterion. Proliferation itself is no bad thing, so long as the quangos collectively are effective.

One of the things that I feel about the commissions that we have at the moment is that they are centralised. Often they have an office in Edinburgh or Glasgow and that is it. I wonder whether the modes of operation of the commissions should be examined with regard to having more local offices. Have you gone down that route? Do you have one office in Belfast that serves the whole of Northern Ireland, or are you trying to localise services and devolve them to local areas?

When we were established in March 1999, we looked actively at setting up an office outside Belfast—indeed, one or more offices—but we quickly realised that we could not afford to do so, so we have not done it. We have responded by promoting ourselves actively outside Belfast. We have a pledge, which we have kept to, to meet anyone anywhere in Northern Ireland on a human rights issue if they would like such a meeting, so we are out and about a great deal. No place in Northern Ireland is more than two hours away from Belfast by car, so it is doable. We try to hold public events in Derry, or Londonderry, Enniskillen, Dungannon and so on. We are aware that people in those places have just as many expectations as people in the Belfast area have.

If you had the resources, would you like to have offices across Northern Ireland?

We would like to have at least one office in the west of the province, probably in Derry or Londonderry.

In response to an earlier question, you said that you examine issues in terms of whether they comply not only with the ECHR, but with other international human rights standards. Clearly, there is a need to keep updated on new international standards. What interaction do you have with human rights commissions and bodies in other countries?

We are recognised as a national human rights institution by the international group of national human rights institutions, which is organised on a continental basis. We attend meetings of the European human rights institutions as well as the world association meetings. The latter take place in Geneva every year contemporaneously with meetings of the UN Commission on Human Rights. On the agenda every year is a discussion of human rights institutions.

Recognised human rights institutions, such as my own, have speaking rights at the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, so every April I am able to make a seven-minute presentation on the state of human rights in Northern Ireland, which is an important and effective means of telling the world how things are in Northern Ireland. The Government also has the opportunity to respond.

We also try to welcome visitors from overseas to our offices; for example, we have had many from Canada, New Zealand and Australia, where there have been human rights commissions for 20 or 30 years. We also, although less often, try to visit other countries to share our experiences with them.

Would it be advisable for a Scottish human rights commission to be a member of the association that you referred to?

It would indeed. At the last meeting the Irish Human Rights Commission—which I am sure you are aware has just been established in the Republic of Ireland—attended for the first time and was welcomed with open arms. It expects to play a full part in the institutions.

The other aspect of international work that we do is commenting on periodic UK reports to various, mainly UN, committees—for example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee Against Torture or the Human Rights Committee itself, which is considering the latest report in July.

Are there any particular regulations around how people obtain entitlement to speaking rights?

Not at the moment. Those rules are developing, and the UN Commission on Human Rights can determine for itself whom to allow to speak. With the proliferation of human rights commissions and of non-governmental organisations there is a danger that it will become too unwieldy to allow such extensive speaking rights in Geneva. At that point, an institution such as mine or the Scottish institution may find that it is excluded. We are not, of course, national institutions in the full sense; only a UK commission or a body representing the UK would then be given speaking rights. There is some danger that there will be change to the current practice.

What would be the way round that? How could that be addressed?

In Sweden, there is no centralised human rights commission, but there are many bodies dealing with ethnic discrimination or with discrimination against gays. There is also the children's ombudsman, for example. Those bodies share the responsibility of representing the whole of Swedish society at the Commission on Human Rights each year. They are delegated the task of speaking and the right to speak on behalf of the other bodies. I imagine that that is what would happen on a UK basis.

I have one final question. You mentioned that you felt that the mode of appointment of the commissioners might not be in accord with the Paris principles. Is there anything else in the way in which your commission has been set up that would breach those principles?

There are two aspects to that. The first is our lack of power to compel the production of evidence. There is a phrase in the Paris principles that suggests that a human rights institution must be able to obtain all the documentation necessary to enable it to protect human rights. Secondly, I think that I am right in saying that the Paris principles require human rights institutions to be adequately funded, so that they may perform their functions. We would argue that we are not adequately funded.

There are no further questions. Thank you very much, Professor Dickson, for making the journey across from Northern Ireland.