asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he recently proposed to the Council of Europe that no country should be free from inquiry, from inspection or from condemnatory action by the international community in respect of breaches of the rights of individuals; and if he will indicate the steps the Government has taken to implement this proposal.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Individuals' Rights.
19.
In the course of the Minister's address to the Council of Europe on 26th April, 1977, he referred to views that he has previously expressed in the General Assembly of the United Nations regarding the protection of human rights and, in particular, to his proposal that an effective worldwide human rights jurisdiction should be created so that no country should be free from inquiry, from inspection, or from condemnatory action by the international community in respect of breaches of the rights of man.
In the General Assembly last year, he cited Council of Europe procedures for the investigation and adjudication of alleged breaches of human rights, making specific mention of the optional procedure by which certain countries, including Ireland, have admitted the right of individual citizens to take proceedings in an international forum against the State when national remedies have been exhausted; and he advocated the universal application of such procedures as the objective towards which the international community should strive.
The Parliamentary Secretary will appreciate that the question did not relate to the right of an individual within the State to take proceedings against that State. The Minister was recommending to the Council of Europe that the Member States of the Council of Europe should make themselves amenable to inquiries from international organisations into any alleged breaches of human rights. Accordingly, I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary if, when the Minister made his statement to the Council of Europe the Government here had already decided (a) that that represents policy and (b) that we would be as good as our word and agree where necessary that what we propose in respect of others should also apply to us.
The Deputy must realise that about the only effective international judicial instance that exists on the globe for probing alleged breaches of human rights inside other countries or outside national boundaries is the procedure within the Council of Europe which the Minister has persistently advocated for the rest of the world since he became a Minister. That is an international procedure. The Council of Europe has 20 members or thereabouts. That is international enough for me, and I believe that the Minister's point, which he has persistently made, has been that the procedures of the Council of Europe should be extended over the rest of the globe.
The Parliamentary Secretary would then seem at odds with the Minister. The Minister, far from thinking they were effective on that occasion, said that the procedures were inadequate because they depended on the consent of the parties or governments against whom the complaints were being made.
Questions, please.
On that basis will the Parliamentary Secretary not accept that in so far as the consent of the countries is obviously a block to effective inquiry or investigation at the moment, that our country which makes this proposal should at least be consistent and allow where international reputable organisations, such as Amnesty International, make requests we should be seen to be consistent and respond to their requests, even where we believe that the alleged complaints are ill-founded?
Of course the application of a procedure like this is to provide in respect of a particular country that foreign judges and the foreign lawyers peeping over the frontiers to see what is going on is dependent on the consent of the country concerned. We have nothing to apologise for in that respect in that country. We were the first of all the countries in the Council of Europe to agree to have that compulsory jurisdiction applied to itself, and we were the first country brought before that tribunal.
A final supplementary.
A final question.
When he relates to that he is talking of a Government who proved themselves consistent in their attitude at home and their obligations——
A question.
Could I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if we may expect from the Government that they will be consistent with their word abroad in their actions at home? Particularly when we sound what are, admittedly, desirable proposals in principle we should at least be consistent, and where the UN procedures are inadequate, as they are, surely we should then respond to other reputable organisations who have proved themselves concerned for their rights that the Minister was speaking about on that occasion.
We are having repetition.
I will be very surprised if the Deputy can find any evidence that any Minister of this Government ever said—or would have any reason to say—that the judicial instances inside this country and the additional ones attached to the Council of Europe were inadequate. They are not inadequate.
Question No. 20 to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
Sorry, what the Minister said was that procedures for the investigation——
Order.
——of alleged breaches of human rights are inadequate largely because they depend in each individual case on the consent of the party concerned. I am not talking about individual cases.
They are inadequate in this country. This State has absolutely no protection, just because it is a State, from the actions brought against it by the humblest citizen in the country.
Order. Question No. 20, please.
(Interruptions.)
The Parliamentary Secretary is deliberately misinterpreting the question.
I am not deliberately misinterpreting anything.
Mr. O'Kennedy, please, I have called the next question.