Lady Trimble finally permitted to speak on the subject of the Bill of Rights

Further to this post, Lady Trimble has pointed out a few home truths to the Northern Ireland Select Committee:

1. I am a strong supporter of the Belfast Agreement which contains the mandate for the proposal for a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.

2. I am personally committed to human rights.

3. I remain a loyal member of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.

4. But over arching these commitments is my commitment to the rule of law.

5. I believe that we must all respect the rule of law: that all are equal under the law and that the law applies equally to all.

6. So I cannot support any proposal for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland that ignores or seeks to subvert the terms of reference as contained in the Agreement.

7. Not only is such wrong in principle: it seems to me that any proposal to ignore or misinterpret the terms of the Agreement on this issue opens a dangerous door to those who would wish - on one side or the other - to subvert other parts, or the whole of the Agreement.

8. The Agreement represents an historic compromise between the two communities in Northern Ireland and represents a chance for everyone in Northern Ireland to live in peace with respect for everyone's point of view. But if the Agreement is subverted for any reason or for any cause, then that - still fragile - peace is in danger.

Direct, correct and to the point.

She then goes onto the question of being denied the right to have her "dissent" from the "consensus" recorded in the report:

15. Last September I raised within the Commission my serious concerns about the direction we were taking and how wrong and dangerous this in my view was for respect for the Agreement. Sadly, apart from one member, I did not receive any support and members did not seem willing to take my concerns seriously or to engage in debate or discussion with me. Accordingly, after a residential meeting at the end of October I indicated within the Commission that in conscience I did not feel that I could sign up to the proposals which the majority of members wished to put into our Report.

16. I expected that the Commission would respect my position and that my Note of Dissent would be published in the Report, as is usual. So I was shocked when at a meeting on 17 November the Commission attempted to use the Commission Standing Orders to stifle even the fact that I (and another member) were dissenting. The most the other Commissioners would agree, at this and a subsequent meeting, was that we could have a note of our dissent (the wording to be agreed by other commissioners) in the minutes of the meeting. But I felt that I could not properly accept such suppression of my views.

Curiously this rather salient information was not relayed by Professor Williams in her presentation to the Dail Committee and it's not the only "omission" apparently made by Lady Trimble's fellow Commissioners:

Accordingly I have to dispute the version of events given by Commissioner Duncan on this to your meeting on 16 March last. I also dispute the version given by our Chief Commissioner to a meeting of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

The main question all this poses is...why has Lady Trimble needed to rely on a private submission to a Select Affairs Committee in order to detail her concerns?