Ms Emily Logan:

It is legitimate for the executive to seek to determine where it stands from a policy point of view. How that policy is determined is an executive decision. Our role as an independent body is to analyse what that means in terms of meeting human rights and equality standards. We do not believe we have a fair or just system, especially for the cohort we are talking about. We have heard from the Minister about other refugees and other resettlement programmes where people are allowed access to work. We are specifically talking about a cohort that has already been excluded from the labour market for a number of years, so they already face a particular difficulty. There is a well established principle in international human rights law that equal treatment is not about treating everybody the same and that it is legitimate to point out that particular groups have particular problems and face significant barriers. It is, therefore, legitimate to put certain policy positions in place to ensure that group is treated equally.