Seanad debates

Wednesday, 18 June 2003

European Convention on Human Rights Bill 2001: Second Stage.

 

Referring to the Norris case, I am sure Senator Norris will not mind me saying it was by no means clear to lawyers that the Supreme Court would make the decision it did in respect of his personal and private life. If those cases had been decided in the opposite way, our record would be even more remarkable. In those cases there were minorities who thought the Supreme Court was, in effect, getting it wrong. No system is free from debate or division as to what is right or wrong. We should recognise that our High Court and Supreme Court have been a remarkable system of protection for civil and political liberties and rights within society. Nothing, therefore, that I say should be taken as critical of them, just to say that on the few occasions where Homer nodded in terms of constitutional rights of the individual, as some of us would like to see them interpreted, there has been the European Convention on Human Rights on which people could rely and, in the last analysis, get corrective action taken.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.