Professor Monica McWilliams:

I also made the point that there would be no consensus on policing in Northern Ireland had it been left to the political parties. These are difficult issues to resolve after a long conflict.

If there is a withdrawal from the Human Rights Act and the Convention on Human Rights, that will also have an impact on policing. The Patten report and the legislation contain various clauses that oblige the police to adhere to position regarding the convention rights. Likewise, the Northern Ireland Assembly has a legislative responsibility to be compliant with the convention rights.

I will address the questions in turn. Trying to get consensus on human rights is probably not the best way to go because one could end up with the lowest common denominator. Some expertise and understanding about what these rights do for everyone is needed. I have concerns when people constantly look for political consensus on issues of such importance. However, it was put to me the other day that the Second World War - a shocking conflict - ended in 1945, that countries went about reconstruction and that the European Convention on Human Rights was introduced in 1950. The Conservative Government had a major hand in the latter but, by 1962, Europe was a different place and countries were co-operating and agreeing that there would be no recurrence of the human rights violations which have occurred on all sides in Northern Ireland. It has now been 17 years since the introduction of the Good Friday Agreement. Could we say the same? Could we say that we are in a completely different place, have an understanding of what of what we did to each other and an understanding of what human rights can do to prevent that from happening again?

On the first question in respect of a civic forum, I was one of the people who wrote the words regarding such a forum into the peace agreement. The proposal came from me and other colleagues in the Women's Coalition at that time because we wanted civic society to play a role in the future alongside the legislative Assembly. We also thought of it as a new way of bringing new people into politics and a very sensible place where people could spend some time on cultural, economic and social affairs, which is what the civic forum was to do. It is a great disappointment to me that it was abolished when the first Assembly collapsed in 2003. It should stay in place when there is a vacuum in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

I do not think it is the place for the bill of rights. Civic society is fed up discussing the bill of rights.