Republished from The Guardian –

Henry McDonald Ireland correspondent

Tuesday 12 May 2015 11.34 BST

Belfast-based human rights organisation says Conservative government’s plans to ditch HRA will also violate international treaty

The Committee on the Administration of Justice is seeking an urgent meeting with the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, about the implications of scrapping the HRA. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Scrapping the Human Rights Act would be a breach of the Good Friday agreement that sealed the peace process in Northern Ireland, a Belfast-based human rights organisation has said.
The Conservative government’s plans to ditch the HRA would also violate an international treaty as the agreement in 1998 was an accord between two sovereign states – the UK and the Irish Republic, according to the committee on the administration of justice.
The CAJ (Committee for Administration of Justice) is seeking an urgent meeting with Theresa Villiers – who was re-appointed by David Cameron as Northern Ireland secretary in his new cabinet – about the threat to the HRA.
In a letter to Villiers, the CAJ’s director in Northern Ireland, Brian Gormally, points out that European human rights law was incorporated into the 1998 agreement.
He says article 2 of an annex to the Good Friday agreement binds the UK internationally to the multi-party deal, which was endorsed in joint referenda on both sides of the Irish border in May 1998; and, after it was ratified, both governments lodged the agreement as a treaty with the United Nations.
Gormally notes that in the section of the agreement guaranteeing the rights of minorities, the British government commits to “complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European convention on human rights, with direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the convention, including power for the courts to overrule assembly legislation on the grounds of inconsistency”.
This part of the agreement is going to be used, for example, by campaigners who are seeking to overturn the ban in Northern Ireland on gay marriage, a challenge that has been blocked by the assembly in Belfast but will now be taken to the European courts.
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The CAJ director says any move to tamper with or dump the HRA would undermine Northern Ireland’s fragile peace settlement.
“The secretary of state should urgently clarify the government’s position as to whether it intends to breach the Belfast/Good Friday agreement in this way. Such a step would make the UK an international outlaw and significantly roll back the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.”
Gormally stresses that the Human Rights Act and and the European court of human rights, and states’ compliance with them, had nothing to do with EU membership.
Founded in 1981, the CAJ monitors human rights abuses by the state and the security forces in Northern Ireland.

Failing gay school teachers

Mon, Feb 17, 2014, 01:04

First published: Mon, Feb 17, 2014, Irish Times

A chara, – On behalf of the INTO LGBT Teachers’ Group, I wish to commend Patsy McGarry for his article which highlights the injustice of Section 37.1 of the Employment Equality Act; an exemption essentially gives religious institutions a State-sanctioned licence to discriminate (“Ireland is continuing to fail its gay teachers in the classroom”, Home News, February 11th).

Section 37.1 allows such employers to take unspecified “action” against those who “undermine its religious ethos”. This very broad statement gives no explanation as to what constitutes undermining an institution’s ethos. The lack of clarity leads to the quiet fear held by many of the teachers in the denominational schools which make up 93 per cent of our education system: “Can they discriminate against me just for being gay?”
Well, can they? It remains to be seen exactly how far such discrimination could be taken, as there hasn’t yet been a test case with regard to discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. However, the vagueness of the language in the section could certainly be open to interpretation.
A Bill is languishing in the legislative system which would amend Section 37.1 to more adequately define what constitutes the undermining of ethos. The INTO LGBT Teachers’ Group does not recommend amendment of Section 37.1, we are campaigning for its deletion. Even in its amended form, it means, as Senator Katherine Zappone stated: “the protection of religious ethos can extend beyond the ground of religion into an employee’s private life and is not confined to what she or he says or does in the workplace”.
Do denominational schools have a right to insist employees adhere to their particular ethos or philosophy? Absolutely. Section 16 of the Equality Act already specifies an employer may insist an employee carry out the duties required of them. Do they or should they, as an institution in receipt of State funds, have a broad and vaguely defined right to judge an employee based on their sexuality? Absolutely not.
The fear Section 37.1 engenders in many LGBT teachers prevents them from fully participating in their school communities. It compels them to keep details of their personal lives secret from colleagues. It prevents them exercising their employment rights in relation to their partnerships.
Our schools are special places in which individuality, diversity and self-respect are supposed to be nurtured and protected. A school is as much a community and a family as it is a workplace and it requires strong collegial relationships and friendships in order to operate effectively.
Section 37.1 is responsible for creating a climate of fear and discrimination in our schools. Rather than protecting a school’s ethos, the silencing and closeting of LGBT teachers undermines the job a school is supposed to do. Section 37.1 needs to go. – Yours, etc,
NIALL CALLAN,
INTO LGBT Teachers’
Group,
Irish National Teachers’
Organisation,
Parnell Square,
Dublin 1.

Further reading:

Ireland is continuing to fail its gay teachers in the classroom