Human Rights in Ireland

Readers interested in the intersection of European Law and Human Rights may find a recent paper published by the Robert Schuman Foundation valuable. Written by Xavier Groussot (Lund University) and Tobias Lock (University of Surrey) and my colleague at NUI Galway, Laurent Pech, it offers an exhaustive assessment of the draft agreement on the accession of the EU to the ECHR finalised on October 14, 2011.  Entitled, “EU Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights: a Legal Assessment of the Draft Accession Agreement of 14th October 2011,” the paper recalls the most contentious points debated before and during the drafting of the draft accession agreement and offers a critical review of how these points were addressed by the Commission and Council of Europe’s experts. 

The paper, which was commissioned by the Robert Schuman Foundation, was launched last week at the French Senate during a conference dedicated to the relationship between the Council of Europe and the EU. 

The paper is available at the website of the Robert Schuman Foundation – see  here.

Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs will be speak at an event organised by the Trinity College Dublin Law Society on Monday next, 24th October. Dannie Hanna who has blogged about death penalty issues on HR in I will also be speaking about his experiences working on behalf of death row inmates in Texas.  

Sunny Jacobs was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Florida. She spent 17 years in prison including 5  years in solitary confinement. She was exonerated on the basis of a confession by another person and another witness’  recantation. Her co-defendant Jesse Tafero, who was convicted on similar evidence, went to the electric chair. His execution became infamous for its macabre nature. For more info on Sunny see this factsheet prepared by the Centre for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University). Read Full Post »

The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole has rejected Troy Davis’ appeal for clemency.  Because the Georgia governor has no power to stay executions this was Troy’s final hope.  He is due to be executed by lethal injection tomorrow Wednesday 21st September 2011. This will be the fourth time he has faced the death penalty.

More than 630,000 letters were delivered by Amnesty International to the Board last week pleading for clemency for Troy, including letters from President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ca. 3,500 people marched in support of Davis in Atlanta on Friday night.

The President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Benjamin Todd Jealous stated at press conference today:

 In moments of immense sadness, moments that shake the foundation of our faith in the justice system and in mankind, there are often no words that can adequately express one’s grief and outrage.

Amnesty has called the refusal of clemency “an outrageous affront to justice”.  The Amnesty petition may be signed at the website www.amnestyusa.org.

UPDATE: Troy Davis was executed last night at 11.08pm local time. His death was delayed by four hours as the US Supreme Court considered a desperate request to halt the execution. The four hour stay of execution caused some supporters to believe that there was hope of a positive outcome. However that was not to be, and Davis was executed at Georgia Diagnostic Prison in Jackson by lethal injection. His last words were directed to the MacPhail family protesting his innocence. The Guardian’s website has a video of Troy Davis’ lawyer and a witness giving their reactions to the execution.  His laywers have called the execution a “legal lynching”.

I have blogged (see here and here) about the story of Troy Davis, a man who has been on death row in Georgia, USA for over two decades. Davis is scheduled to be executed next Wednesday. Davis was convicted in 1991 of the murder of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. There was no physical or forensic evidence linking Davis to the crime and the murder weapon was never found. Seven of the nine witnesses whose testimony was used to convict Davis later recanted, many of them saying that they were pressurised by the police into saying that Davis was the murderer.  In March of this year  the US Supreme Court refused Davis’ final appeal. (See my blog on the appeal here), setting the stage for Davis’ fourth execution date.

Davis’ execution is scheduled for Wednesday at 7pm at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. Davis’ lawyers will make a final bid for clemency to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday 19th September. In the lead up to the clemency hearing, community activists, including Robert Brooks from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), have been making impassioned pleas to the members of the Board to grant Davis clemency. If the clemency hearing is not successful, Davis will be executed on Wednesday.

The Amnesty International petition calling on Georgia District Attorney Larry  Chisolm to act to halt the execution and the petition asking the Board of Pardons and Parole to grant clemency may be signed by following this link.

The Minister for Justice and Equality Mr Alan Shatter has announced that he is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified members of the public to be considered for appointment as Ireland’s representative on the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). The ECRI’s role is described as follows on the Department’s site:

ECRI’s objectives are: to review member states’ legislation, policies and other measures to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance and their effectiveness; to propose further action at local, national and European level; to formulate general policy recommendations to member states; to study international legal instruments applicable in the matter with a view to their reinforcement where appropriate.

ECRI provides Council of Europe member states with concrete and practical advice on how to tackle problems of racism and intolerance in their country. To this end, it examines in each country the legal framework for combating racism and racial discrimination, its practical implementation, the existence of bodies to assist victims of racism, the situation of vulnerable groups in specific policy areas (education, employment, housing etc.) and the tone of political and public debate around issues relevant for these groups.

For more information see the Press Release. Further details on eligibility criteria and how to apply are available on the Department’s website here.

 The Call for Papers has been issued for the forthcoming international conference “Contemporary Housing Issues in a Changing Europe” to be held 20-21 April 2012 at NUI Galway. The conference is being organised by  the Centre for Housing Law, Rights and Policy at NUI Galway in association with the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) Legal Aspects of Land and Planning WG, Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA), the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), Housing Rights Watch, Fondation Abbé Pierre and the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP). The Call is posted after the jump. Read Full Post »

Researchers and teachers in the diverse and expanding field of Socio-Legal Studies (also known as Law and Society) will be delighted to discover the valuable resource created by Dr Tobias Kelly at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Kelly has created a collection of reading lists in Socio-Legal Studies/Law and Society. The resource is part of a curriculum project funded by the ESRC.

The collection consists of a mixture of general reading lists, methods courses and reading lists on specific topics, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and reflect teaching in the UK, Europe, the US and  Australia. Reading lists are provided for courses delivered by leading scholars, including Johnathan Simon (Punishment,  Culture and Society), Denis Galligan (Law in Society) Davina Cooper (Regulating Communities) Elizabeth Loftus (Memory and the Law), LaDawn Haglund  ( Globalization and Economic Justice)  John T. Jost (System Justification and other seminars)and Max Travers (Sociology of Law).

Anyone who wishes to add their reading list to the collection should email Dr Kelly at: toby.kelly@ed.ac.uk.

The first and most fundamental action required [in response to sexual violence] is the development of a systematic approach to data capture and collation. The lack of consistent information about the number of people affected by domestic and sexual violence limits our ability to respond to the problem.

-Extract from the National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual, Gender-Based Violence 2010-2014, p.4

Minister for Health James Reilly is considering cutting Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI)’s core funding of €270,000 a year from August 1 2011 . If it goes ahead the cut will force the RCNI to close.  The HSE had planned to cut all core funding to the RCNI at the end of June, but it was told to postpone the cut pending the outcome of a review by the Minister. The cuts are being justified by the HSE on the grounds of  value for money, accountability and the avoidance of  duplication. If this goes cut ahead, the knowledge base regarding sexual violence in this country will be severely diminished. Read Full Post »

Magdalen Survivor Mary Smith is one of a number of guests who reflect on the themes of pain and forgiveness in Were You There?, a once-off programme presented by Joe Duffy and broadcast on Easter Monday on RTE Radio 1. Ms Smith’s testimony makes for heartbreaking listening and is essential for anyone seeking to understand the suffering that people incarcerated in religious and state-run institutions as children endured, and continue to endure.

In November 2009 Mary Smith, along with four other women who had been in Magdalen laundries, met senior officials at the Department of Justice. They told the officials that as the State funded some of the laundries after 1979, it had responsibility for women held in them. They also said they had written to religious congregations whom they hoped “would come on board” with compensation. (see the Irish Times report).

As guest blogger Maeve O’Rourke detailed so well in her blogs last year (here here and with Prof James Smith here), the State continues to deny responsibility for these women and has refused to apologise to the survivors. The State’s position is that the laundries were owned and operated and did not come within the State’s responsibility.

However, in recent months there has been an increased scrutiny of this absolutist stance.

Read Full Post »

Readers of HRinI might be familiar with the story of Troy Davis, a man who has been on death row in Georgia, USA for over two decades. Davis was convicted in 1991 of the murder of off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. There was no physical or forensic evidence linking Davis to the crime and the murder weapon was never found. Seven of the nine witnesses whose testimony was used to convict Davis later recanted, many of them saying that they were pressurised by the police into saying that Davis was the murderer. I blogged last year about a federal judge’s ruling that Davis had failed to show his innocence in an evidentiary hearing mandated by the US Supreme Court.  Last week, the US Supreme Court refused Davis’ final appeal. This means that Davis will soon be facing his fourth execution date, his last one having been halted by the Supreme Court a mere two hours before the scheduled execution. Read Full Post »