Portfolio: Justice
Human rights
Rory Cahill meets Professor Alan Miller, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, ahead of the new
body formally beginning its work
H
uman rights abuses. When most
of us think about the term, we
imagine hideous acts of murder, rape
and ethnic cleansing in places like Bos-
nia and Rwanda. And we are right; the
atrocities are human rights abuses, of the
most ghastly sort.
But we are wrong if we assume
that human rights abuses do not occur
in places like Scotland. Thankfully, we
do not experience the worst of the hor-
rors here – genocide, rape as a weapon
of war – but there are still numerous
examples where people’s human rights
are violated.
It is these situations that the new
Scottish Human Rights Commission will
seek to challenge and redress. Created by
an Act of the Scottish Parliament in the
final days of the previous Executive, the
commission officially launched last week
to coincide with the 60th anniversary
of the United Nations Declaration of
Human Rights. It will be chaired by Pro-
fessor Alan Miller, one of the most expe-
rienced human rights lawyers in Britain.
So what will the commission actually
do, and what are the kinds of human
rights abuses it will hope to tackle?
Miller says that cementing the
notion in people’s minds that human
rights do matter in Scotland, and that
abuses do take place and can, and will
be, redressed, is one of the commission’s
key aims:
“One of the challenges facing the
commission is to connect human rights
to the everyday lives of people through-
out Scotland. For example, some of the
Professor Alan
initiatives we’ve taken on, even before
Miller, chair of
we go live, we have done scoping proj-
the Scottish
ects as to where the commission might
Human Rights
make a difference in such areas as older Commission
people, particularly in residential homes, have already identified where we think care, can the commission make a differ-
the experience of users of mental health we can do something and we think this ence? What are the tangible changes and
services, the remedies open to adult sur- will have resonance within public life in outcomes it will be able to effect, or is
vivors of historical child abuse and insti- Scotland.” the £1m per year, ten-person operation
tutional care. So how exactly, on an issue like the destined to become just another talking
“These are some of the areas we treatment of older people in residential shop?
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| 15 December 2008 | Holyrood magazine |
www.holyrood.com |
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