Issue 35 December 2006 - Introduction: There will be a Commission for Human RIghts

This Issue once more reflects both the contemporary challenges and opportunities for human rights-at home and abroad-along with the updating of case law developments.

There will be a Scottish Commission for Human Rights.

On November 2 Holyrood voted to pass the Bill. Its powers, functions and remit remain substantially as originally proposed. However, rather than creating a Commissioner, Holyrood decided to establish a Commission - made up of up to five Commissioners, including a Chair. This amendment has met with the broad approval of the human rights community.

Kavita Chetty reports on the passage of the Bill-arguably the most significant step forward for human rights in Scotland since the passing of the Scotland Act and the Human Rights Act.

The passage of the Bill has been a long and winding road, with more than a few unexpected turns towards the end, but we now have a Commission and it has been a journey well worth the travelling.

The Commission is being created, of course, at a time when there are mixed views about how human rights should be applied in our society and this will need to be kept in mind by the Commission. There was by no means universal support within Holyrood for the creation of the Commission and it will have to prove its worth.

The responsibility will now pass to those appointed to serve in the Commission to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunity to make human rights matter for everyone throughout the length and breadth of our country.

Mixed views about the place of human rights in our society are also reflected in the recent government review of the Human Rights Act (as reported in Issue 33 of SHRJ) and the subsequent publication by the Department for Constitutional Affairs of "Human rights, human lives – a handbook for public authorities".

As reported by Kavita Chetty, this publication is to be welcomed in as much as it resists the anti-Human Rights Act campaign but it falls short of confidently promoting the place of human rights in working towards a society in which there is a shared set of values and respect for "the other".

Although striking largely a defensive tone about the impact to date of the Human Rights Act, it does provide however some significant case studies of best practice which illustrate the potential benefits for all of developing a human rights culture.

It is evidence-based examples of best practice, such as at the State Hospital at Carstairs, which need to be shared and integrated into the mainstream so as to enable human rights to make a difference. This will be one of the responsibilities of the Commission.

But the Commission's responsibilities will lie further than that. It will have to assume its international responsibilities and play its part in the learning from, and contributing to, best practice within the network of national human rights institutions.

Many of the issues to be faced by the Commission will have inevitably an international dimension. In this Issue we are publishing the submission made by Mary Robinson, on behalf of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative, to the recent UN High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development. Globalisation presents challenges to all countries and requires an internationally co-ordinated response and migration is just one example of this.

A task facing the Commission will be to connect the international experience and challenge to the domestic and public issues of concern in Scotland. This has always been part and parcel of the promotion and protection of human rights as illustrated in the following quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt, a leading architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"Where after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home-so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works ... unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

(Eleanor Roosevelt, Chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission, 1948.)