DUP attacks choice of human rights commisioner
A senior member of the Democratic Unionists today denounced the appointment of former Assembly member Monica McWilliams as the chief human rights commissioner in Northern Ireland as crass.
DUP Policing Board member Ian Paisley Jr claimed the former Women’s Coalition MLA was hostile towards his party and could not command the support of unionists.
The North Antrim Assembly member argued: “The appointment of Monica McWilliams as the chief human rights commissioner is a clear sign of the Government’s total disregard for the view of unionists in Northern Ireland.
“Not only was Monica McWilliams involved in the sham of redesignation (of Assembly members) to allow (former Ulster Unionist leader) David Trimble to become First Minister after he lost the confidence of unionists in the Assembly but her record over the years is that she has been hostile to the position adopted by the largest political party in the province.
“How can such an individual possibly expect to win the support of unionists? This is a crass decision for the government to have taken, which will only set back the cause of human rights.”
Prof.McWilliams served as the Assembly member for South Belfast between 1998 and 2003 but lost her seat in the last Stormont election.
She was a leading member of the cross community Women’s Coalition’s negotiating team in the talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Along with Assembly colleague Jane Morrice, she also led the Women’s Coalition in talks after the Agreement with other parties and the Irish and British governments to set up and revive the power-sharing institutions.
Prof. McWilliams served on the Assembly’s Health Committee and was also a member of the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue, where her party encountered hostility from some unionist politicians.
She will take over from Professor Brice Dickson as head of a commission which has been criticised by both unionist and nationalist politicians and by academics.
The commission was set up under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
It has been beset by internal rows and was reduced to six active commissioners from a team of 13.
There were resignations from the commission over its handling of a court case involving the picketing by loyalists of primary schoolchildren from the Holy Cross school in Ardoyne in north Belfast.
In February, a report by academics from Bristol University and Queen’s University in Belfast also questioned the effectiveness of the rights body, claiming it had failed to develop a collective vision for itself and had not been given adequate support by the Northern Ireland Office.
The British government announced plans last December to increase the powers of the commission, granting it access to places of detention and to summon witnesses.
Other commissioners appointed to the body today included Ards Democratic Unionist councillor Jonathan Bell, former nationalist SDLP Assembly member Eamonn O’Neill and cross-community Alliance Party member Geraldine Rice.
In 1999 Mr Bell organised the “Long March” from Derry to Drumcree Church in Portadown for victims of IRA violence and demanding Protestant civil rights.
Other new appointees to the commission include Irish Congress of Trades Unions member Ann Hope, who has served on the Equality Commission, human rights law academic Professor Colin Harvey, Thomas Duncan, a former headmaster of Royal School Armagh and Alan Henry, a post-office employee.
