Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Chairman to bear with me as I am relatively new to the committee. I thank the Chairman and committee for nominating me and Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan to try to come up with wording that was fair to the proposer of the original motion and the amendment. I took it terribly seriously. I have had sleepless nights while working out how best to present to the committee a motion that would interpret fairly accurately the desire of the presenter, Bill Browder, on behalf of his employee, who died in very strange circumstances in a Russian jail. If one calls a spade a spade, very few other governments, notwithstanding the position of the OSCE and the European Parliament, will repeat the exact formula used by the Americans in the change of legislation. A lot of politicians are supportive of saying something, but very few governments are prepared to sit down and talk. A number of us threw in our lot in support of the motion suggested. I was so concerned I tabled an amendment calling for an Irish Magnitsky law to be imposed against all other gross human rights violators. I was not just thinking of one man in the international arena in Russia but of tyrants all over the world. It would be lovely to impose sanctions if one could do so. One also has to think about who the tyrants are and where they are based.

I applaud Bill Browder and his company, Hermitage Capital Management, for being so loyal to his employee who died. I ask the committee to tease out how we can apply sanctions and best represent the interests of human rights activists throughout the world. For example, on Friday we will unveil a list of human rights front-line defenders. The President will speak in support of their rights. If the committee used Senator Walsh's motion and started to list the names and addresses of people and the roles they played in incidents, and one wanted to be fair to all victims of human rights, one would be in a crazy world trying to document those who abused people.

If one thinks about it a little more deeply one must wonder: if this is done for Sergei Magnitsky, what about other Russians, such as the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky who is, allegedly, suffering in a Siberian prison? Does one create a wealth of support for one man, who is a legitimate case, in isolation from every other victim of human rights abuses? How, as a committee comprised of politicians concerned about human rights, do we give other victims their rights?

Men from all over the world were plucked up by rendition and were sent to tyrants in Egypt or Jordan to be tortured and have confessions extracted from them. Some of them ended up in Guantanamo Bay. How does one apply the concerns of the committee for the rights of all individual victims of human rights abuses, such as those to be unveiled by Mary Lawlor on Friday when she lists front-line defenders highlighted as being in need of support? The formula proposed by Senator Walsh is unworkable and, in any case, does not have political support in any country outside America. We should use traditional and workable political lobbying, as our motion states, by using the Presidency of the Council of the European Union - the Tánaiste is the man in charge - to engage with the Russians, as the motion states, to highlight issues concerning the death of Sergei Magnitsky and try to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice under basic international human rights laws.

Unfortunately, Deputy O'Sullivan has been delayed and cannot be here. We tortured ourselves in trying to be as fair as we possibly could in moving in what we feel is the right, serious and honest way forward. If Parliament was to change laws it would take years. I would like to think that if people such as the human rights defenders who will be honoured on Friday were exposed to danger we would have on the Statute Book a formula that could make people accountable for the abuse of their citizens. That is another day's work.

I appeal to the members to treat this issue as a human rights issue. As the Tánaiste says, the correspondence is extraneous to this debate in a sense that correspondence from an embassy to this committee should be responded to. I ask for this to be adopted as the fairest composite way of dealing with this very delicate issue.