Rights head under pressure

Brice Dickson held talks with Sinn Fein and the SDLP

The head of the Human Rights Commission is under pressure to step down following talks with nationalist parties.

Brice Dickson held lengthy separate meetings on Wednesday with Sinn Fein and the SDLP, who have both been critical of his role within the organisation.

The commission is a statutory body which was established under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Its role is to ensure that the human rights of everyone in Northern Ireland are protected in law, policy and practice.

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness said the commission was broken and needed to be fixed.

Speaking after the party's meeting, he said the commission needed a complete restructuring in areas like appointments, composition and resources.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan said a change in the commission's leadership was needed.

"The nature of the Human Rights Commission is one where people will be moving in and out of position anyway," he said.

"We have made the point to the commission very clearly that we were saying it with a heavy heart, but we were saying it with a very clear head.

"The questions about the tenability of his position remain, and they are positions that he needs to address."

Flaws

Mr Dickson last week admitted flaws in the way he handled the Holy Cross Girls' Primary School dispute.

Although the commission backed a legal action challenging the policing of the school protest, Mr Dickson expressed privately-held reservations about the merit of the case in correspondence with the then Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan.

Mr Dickson said that his reservations about the merits of the case were shared by three other commissioners, but he believed he could have handled things differently.

A report by the Joint Commons and Lords Committee on Human Rights said Mr Dickson's handling of the Holy Cross case raised questions about the commission's independence.

Three members of the commission have resigned in the past year.

Inez McCormack and Christine Bell, who stepped down last September, said in their resignation letters they believed the commission was ineffective in protecting and promoting human rights.

Patrick Yu, executive director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, also raised similar concerns when he resigned from the commission earlier this month.