OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard)

Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard) Mr Dermot Nesbitt 15 October 2020 NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights Mr Dermot Nesbitt 15 October 2020 Members present for all or part of the proceedings: Ms Emma Sheerin (Chairperson) Mr Mike Nesbitt (Deputy Chairperson) Ms Paula Bradshaw Mr Mark Durkan Miss Michelle McIlveen Mr Christopher Stalford Mr John O'Dowd Witnesses: Mr Dermot Nesbitt Ulster Unionist Party The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Dermot Nesbitt joins us in person to give a briefing on "particular circumstances". Welcome, Dermot, how are you? Mr Dermot Nesbitt (Ulster Unionist Party): Hello, Madam Chair. The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Do you want a round of introductions before you start your briefing? Mr D Nesbitt: I am ready, once I unmask. I recognise a few faces — "Oh dear", says I. Hi, Paula, it has been a long time. The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Dermot, thanks very much for joining us this afternoon. We all have your written submission, which is useful and all-encompassing. Would you like to begin? Mr D Nesbitt: OK. I see that we have two members on screen. The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): We do: John O'Dowd and Mark Durkan. Mr D Nesbitt: Hi, John and Mark. Mr O'Dowd: Hi, Dermot. Mr Durkan: Hi, Dermot. Mr D Nesbitt: OK, I am ready to go. I wish to make a couple of introductory comments before I proceed with my main briefing. Paragraph 2 of my submission quotes Professor Brice Dickson, who, when chair of the Human Rights Commission, said: 1 "We are all familiar with the phenomenon of politicians taking a view of human rights which happens to accord with their personal political persuasions rather than with a more independent analysis." At the outset, I wish to say that, during this process since 1998, I have endeavoured to ground my work in international standards and international human rights. I have tried to make my maxim the plain meaning of the language: what it means, and what we should do. I have tried to be objective and evidence-based, which is why I use quotations extensively in my submission, including some from what I have written. I firmly believe that, if we deal with this difficult issue in the phrasing of international law, we remove from the discussion the local lingo and the political lingo. That is what I have been doing from the outset. Therefore, I welcome cross-party questioning of my submission on the basis of that premise. I intend to speak briefly on three aspects. I will put this in context: what is that we are about. I will look at what the two key players, namely the Human Rights Commission and the two Governments, have or have not done. Then, I will give a summary of my comments at the end of my submission. In the talks process, there were three strands: North/South, east-west and within Northern Ireland. A further strand of cross-strand issues cut across the three strands, and I was the lead person from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) on that. I do not deny that I am a unionist — not at all — but that is different from what I will try to articulate to you. A key issue was identity. Who could I use to better identify that problem than Senator George Mitchell, the chairman of the all-party talks in 1998? He was very clear: in 2019, he said that identity remains a threat to stability and that there must be a clear commitment to address this matter. Paragraph 8 of my submission quotes a 'Belfast Telegraph' editorial: "If this is to be a shared space then respective identities must be respected." There is the word "identity" cropping up, not from a certain perspective but from a general position. Therefore, the question is this: what rights do we need to address that issue? In 1996, there was an election to a forum, from which the participants in the talks came. At that time, the Irish Government sponsored a Forum for Peace and Reconciliation to give advice to the participants, and they brought in international experts to formulate that advice. I quote extensively from two of those experts to give international context. Asbjørn Eide is viewed as a leading international expert. He was an active member of a committee in Norway and of a United Nations subcommission. What did he say? He said that we should establish the problem. He said that the problem that is often the most difficult to resolve is that you have two groups with an ethnic dimension who compete and conflict over the same territory, and, when two ethnic groupings conflict over the same territory, they say that they are discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens. They seek recognition of parity of identity and parity of esteem. That is what he said, and those words found their way into paragraph 4 of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. He also said that what the two groups may have wished for, apart from that, was for separation, autonomy or merger with a neighbouring state. We recognise those dynamics in the Northern Ireland problem. He also said was that it was not a unique problem and that very few countries have a population with homogenous ethnicity. It is not a unique problem. The dynamics are there, they are clear, and Northern Ireland fits within those dynamics. Where do we go from there? What is the solution? Asbjørn Eide said: "the Council of Europe adopted the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities." He described that as the first multilateral hard law. Hard law means that any country that ratifies it must subscribe to giving submissions on how it has complied with that law. This was the first multilateral hard law dealing exclusively with minority rights. He also said that it went further than any previous international instrument. That was a substantial one: it was the first one, and it went further than anywhere else. 2 Let us not look only at what Asbjørn Eide said. I will quote from another Forum for Peace and Reconciliation document, this one written by Professors Boyle, Campbell, and Hadden. I am very conscious that the late Professor Boyle was a leading activist in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. So, I am not quoting from the unionist persona, as it were; I am trying to be genuinely objective. What did they say? There is a quote in paragraph 14 of my submission. They said that whilst "individual rights" were in the European Convention, community rights must also be addressed, and they suggested that those may best be addressed by incorporating the framework convention within a bill of rights. There it is — simple — in 1996. They also said that all these rights were now enshrined in international law and that it was not for us to barter over which bit we accepted and which bit we did not. Rather, they were there to be subscribed to. I wrote this briefing in May 2020, and, as we know — I smile as I say this — over the summer, international law has featured everywhere, from Nancy Pelosi to all over the place, "We must subscribe to international law; we cannot do anything other". "Gee whiz", says I, "It is wonderful to hear them say it"; whereas I have been saying for quite a long time that we must subscribe to international law. So, there it is. At the time, I was a member of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR), which was succeeded by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC). SACHR got involved in this as well. So, I reflected on these submissions, and I agreed with them: they were the correct, balanced way forward. It required compromise from both sides. It required some pragmatism if we were to make progress. I wrote in September 1996: "Were all participants in the Talks process to abide by the international consensus as to how to solve our problem of a divided society, progress would be made." In June 1997, I challenged the Government, through a platform article in a local paper, to ratify this convention, which they were not doing; they were ignoring it. My article said that it should be within a bill of rights and that the European Convention and the framework convention gave the European model for solving this problem. Again, I was giving the international perspective. Finally — I smile at this; I really do — in January 1998, when the Westminster Government ratified it, I wrote that this represented, potentially, the most significant development. The word "potentially" is interesting because that means it developing into something in the future. Had somebody told me then that, 22 years later, I would still be looking for it to be developed, I would have said, "Catch yourself on, mate". I repeat: this is, potentially, the most significant way forward. What is the framework convention? I will address that so that it is on the record and you get a flavour of it. It prohibits discrimination, preserves cultural identity and promotes mutual respect for all. Members of a minority community can assemble, associate and have freedom of thought and religion; they can communicate in any language; and they can communicate in the media — publicly, privately, in writing and orally. They are not precluded from anything. They can display signs privately, and they can display street names. They can use their own name. On education, apart from the recognition of the right to education, members of a minority community can be educated in the minority language.

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