James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make just a brief comment. As my colleague Deputy O'Callaghan said, Fianna Fáil supports the Bill and welcomes its introduction to and passage through the House.

It is worth briefly considering other international frameworks, in particular the Magnitsky Act. Bill Browder visited Leinster House earlier this year. While the Magnitsky Act provides for a different type of framework from that provided for here, it allows international human rights violators to be sanctioned in multiple countries and jurisdictions. It is less of an advance than the legislation before us but it might be considered as a sanction. Otherwise, Ireland risks becoming a haven for violators of human rights. We in this House should consider whether it is appropriate to advance the Magnitsky Act.

To tie in with an issue Deputy O'Callaghan raised regarding what will happen in a post-Brexit landscape, we hope we are beginning to see an orderly Brexit. In any event, it is worth reflecting that the European Convention on Human Rights is a very successful international legal framework which has underpinned much of the human rights legislation, including legislation on the presumption of innocence, which is key to the legislation before the House. The presumption of innocence is underpinned by the European Convention on Human Rights. It is a great irony that it was a British Law Lord who authored the convention following the Second World War. This brought the presumption of innocence, the golden thread, and the principles in the likes of Woolmington v. DPP to bear on European law. It is this rich inheritance that Britain is now walking away from with Brexit, but c'est la vie. That is outside of our control. We in this House, however, are committed to European and international frameworks, no less the one before us, which we support.

See this speech in context