What rights has the chief commissioner for Human Rights? That's one of the questions raised by the call from some politicians for the resignation of Professor Brice Dickson as head of Human Rights Commission.
Politicians can legitimately call for the resignation of other politicians. Indeed in most democracies opposition MPs regularly call on ministers to resign from government over certain issues. (The exception is our own assembly where all major parties are in government and there is no sizeable opposition.) But a politician in this country would not call on, say, a senior civil servant to resign. The matter would be left to some higher rational being within the service and political criticism would ultimately be directed at the civil servant's boss, the minister.
As the head of a government body Brice Dickson is a public servant rather than a civil servant but his post would normally be considered as being beyond the cut and thrust of politics. In his case, however, politicians have neither sought a higher rational being nor made reference to his boss.
Dickson is required to report annually to the Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, who in turn must lay the report before Westminster. It is reasonable to assume therefore that Paul Murphy is effectively Dickson's boss and that the boss has in place performance indicators to assess how well the chief commissioner is doing his job.
If Dickson is performing within these indicators he cannot be asked to resign. If he is not performing, then it is up to Paul Murphy to act on the evidence. If Murphy is happy with Dickson's work – and there is no reason to assume otherwise – and if some politicians are still unhappy with the commission's performance, then they should call for Murphy's head, not Dickson's.
So why are politicians keen to see Dickson leave his post and return to academic studies? He certainly alienated many nationalists by his handling of a case against the RUC in the Holy Cross school dispute. But more significantly his interpretation of human rights may be at odds with the views of some politicians. Whereas he appears to advocate individual rights, they believe in the current model of group rights.
In practical terms this means that an unsuccessful applicant for a job may take a case of discrimination on the basis of gender or religion, for example. But the person cannot claim discrimination for having a tattoo on his or her forehead.
A bill of rights centred on the individual would address this type of scenario.
Some politicians fear that the protection of individual rights may conflict with group rights. We appear to have reached the stage in this country where some rights are seen to be more important than others. This is more than a debate on philosophy. In the cold reality of our local politics its significance is that the Good Friday Agreement is largely built on the concept of group and not individual rights.
In short, Dickson's ideas might undermine the foundations of the agreement. So how much of the anti-Dickson sentiment is about the commission's performance and how much of it centres on the commissioner's views?
In general the commission has failed to deliver. There has been no Bill of Rights and there is no sign of one. The reasons for this are unclear but in an attempt to respond to criticism the commission last week published an action plan. It was a poor plan.
There was little in it to offer inspiration and it is likely to give more comfort to the commission's enemies than its friends. Bairbre de Brun maybe came up with the best assessment when she said that the core issues facing the commission were structure, appointments, resources and remit. She said it was broke and it needed to be fixed – a reasonable observation. But by calling for his resignation other politicians might be interpreted as suggesting that Dickson broke it. If he did, that's a matter for Murphy. If he didn't, and it needs fixed, then that's also a matter for Murphy.
In recent years the word 'securocrat' has been used to describe public servants in the military and some government departments who use their positions in the administrative process for political purposes.
The inherent danger in politicians' attacking Dickson is that some people might see them as 'politicrats'- politicians who try to influence public servants for party political purposes.
The Hutton Inquiry examined whether senior British politicians fitted this category by pressurising public servants to draw unwarranted scientific conclusions to justify the invasion of Iraq.
We do not need politicrats here. Let politicians attack politicians. But let those politicians who make public appointments protect the rights of those they appoint – and then hold them to their responsibilities.
