Statement: Senator Bacik to speak at Human Rights Conference

SENATOR BACIK TO SPEAK AT HUMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE

Senator Ivana Bacik,
Friday 27th April 2012

Tomorrow Saturday 28thApril, Senator Ivana Bacik will address the inaugural Sheehy Skeffington School at Liberty Hall on the topic of ‘embedding a human rights culture'.

Speaking on the theme of the conference‘putting human rights at the heart of a good society', Senator Bacikwill say:

“Can a new human rights cultureever take root in the Ireland? Now is a good time to debate this issue,as we come towards the 10th anniversary of the incorporationof the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)into domestic Irish law through the 2003 Act, with the Constitutional Conventiondue to look at revision of the Constitution generally, and with the proposedmerger of our two rights-enforcement bodies into one new Commission.

“I am very hopeful that the proposednew Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission will form a strengthenedbody that will play a key role in developing our understanding and applicationof rights into the future. I was very heartened to read in the recentlypublished Report of the Working Group that the new body must have bothindependence from government and adequate resources. I note that the Equalityand Rights Alliance has broadly welcomed the report, and I very much hopethat we will see some public debate on the content of the report.

Like the debate around the documentscontaining human rights guarantees generally, such a debate can only serveto improve and deepen our understanding of what a real human rights basedculture could be.”

ENDS