DIRECTOR'S REPORT June 1998

June 1998

British Irish RIGHTS WATCH is delighted to report that the Committee on the Administration of Justice has been awarded the Council of Europe's Human Rights Prize. This prestigious recognition of their excellent work over the years for all communities in Northern Ireland is very well deserved.

I am very pleased to report that I have been appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The fellowship will enable us to develop closer links with the programme of human rights studies there. I am trying to get used to being a fellow!

The various domestic and international NGOs who work on the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland met in Dublin on 14th June to discuss the human rights dimensions of the peace agreement and to consider joint strategies for trying to ensure that the promises it contains bear fruit. Concern was expressed at the failure to include any international human rights experts in the membership of the Policing Commission to be chaired by Chris Patten.

We have agreed to send a report to the UN's Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions concerning the shooting by a Garda unit of Ronan MacLochlainn on 1st May 1998 in Co. Wicklow. Although involved in an armed robbery on behalf of a dissident republican group when killed, Ronan MacLochlainn appears to have been killed while attempting to drive away in a hijacked car. The Gardai clearly had prior information concerning the robbery, and mounted an ambush of the six men involved. It is not clear why they could not have arrested Ronan MacLochlainn, as they did the other five men, without resorting to lethal force

On 11th June I had the pleasure of attending a reception at the Dial hosted by the Taoiseach in honour of the Bloody Sunday families. This provided an opportunity to discuss with some of the relatives their concerns about the forthcoming new inquiry.

We have sent a lengthy response to a consultation exercise carried out by the Criminal Cases Review Commission concerning their methods of prioritising cases. We continue to have concerns about the length of time it is taking to resolve cases referred to the CCRC by the Northern Ireland Office in April 1997.

On 13th June I spoke at a joint ICCL/CAJ conference in Dublin on the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into Irish domestic law. Many distinguished legal and academic voices were raised in support of Ireland ending its position as the last country in Europe yet to incorporate the Convention.

On 28th May I attended the annual Mischcon Lecture, delivered this year by BBC journalist Fergal Keane, who took the theme of reconciliation. We helped the organisers of the lecture by suggesting people from our own mailing list who might be interested in attending the lecture, and were pleased to see a number of friends in the audience.

Amnesty International kindly invited me to an event in the House of Commons on 17th June to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from which all other international human rights conventions and so on flow.

British Irish RIGHTS WATCH will be monitoring the outcome of the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 25th June, and will send out a briefing analysing the results as soon as we have them.

For Peace Justice & Human Rights

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