The Government has been criticised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties for its failure to establish a Human Rights Commission as promised in the Belfast Agreement, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
In a statement to mark Human Rights Day today, the ICCL said: "When the legislation to establish such a commission in the South was published in July, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform promised that it would be up and running by the end of the year. The Bill has not yet reached Committee Stage."
The statement added that Ireland was the only State among the 40 member-states of the Council of Europe not to have incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights in domestic law. It also said Ireland had yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention Against Torture.