Introduction To Commission

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Hello and welcome along to the Scottish Human Rights Commission podcast.  Jenifer Johnston and I look after communications for the Commission.  Today we’re going to speaking to Alan Miller.  Alan is the Chair of the Commission.  Alan, I wonder if you could tell us first of all just about the set up of the Commission?  Why is it here?  What are we doing?

AM:    Yeah.  The Commission are here basically to help develop a Human Rights culture throughout Scotland.  The Parliament has given us a number of powers.  We can conduct legal enquiries where we think there’s some serious problem of Human Rights, somewhere in the country or in an institution or in a particular area of life.  That also empowers us to go into places of detention without any advance notification to carry out investigations. We can compel witnesses to give evidence and documents to be produced and if there’s any refusal we can go to court if need be to get a court order.  We also have power to intervene in certain civil legal proceedings and court cases where we think there is a Human Rights argument which the public interest requires to be taken into account by the courts and otherwise it wouldn’t be if we didn’t take part.  And we’ve got the duty to keep under constant review the law policies and how they’re practiced in Scotland to make sure that they are as they should be, promoting and protecting the Human Rights of everyone in Scotland.  The main work we’ll do, the general duty the Parliament has given us is to promote best practice in Human Rights.  What does that mean?  To make Human Rights much more user friendly in every day life for everyday people, for all the organisations and institutions that make decisions that impact on our lives, how to make Human Rights matter on a daily basis for those kind of areas.

JJ:       It does seem to have taken a number of years for the Commission to get up and running.  I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the background to that and the history of bringing the Commission to life?

AM:    The Commission first became a sort of issue on the horizon when the Scotland Act set up the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government and it required both the Government and the Parliament to make sure they did everything in a way that was consistent with Human Rights, mainly the European Convention Human Rights and also ten years ago, the Human Rights Act came into force throughout the UK, basically bringing the European Convention of Human Rights into our everyday courts and legal system.  So at that point it was mooted should there not therefore be a Human Rights Commission to help manage this whole process, make people aware of what the changes were that were underway and how the Human Rights of people could be better recognised, understood and applied, but there was a lot of political and public consultation exercises which went on for five or six years and things only really started to become serious a couple of years ago when the Parliament did pass what was called the Scottish Commission for Human Rights Act.  It got the Royal Assent towards the end of 2006 and since then it’s been a process of electing myself, which was done at the end of November 2007.  I then took up post in March 2008.  My fellow members of the Board, the part time commissioners were appointed in May by the Parliament, staff in October and we went live December 10^th, 2008, which was the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  So a very slow gestation period but since it was made real, we actually have moved very fast and we’re now just finishing a nationwide consultation plan and presenting our strategic plan and our working plans to Parliament, so a head of steam has been got up.

JJ:       And what’s the global position of the Commission? 

AM:    Over the last decade or two, there has now been over 80 National Human Rights Commissions created throughout the world and there are what’s called the UN Paris Principles, standards by which these Commissions are recognised by the UN as being legitimate Human Rights Commissions.  So do they have adequate independence from the governments of their countries.  Are they seriously funded?  Do they reflect the population in their countries in terms of diversity?  Do they have powers and a mandate broad enough to enable work to be carried out?

JJ:       It is quite a busy landscape in Scotland of public bodies.  I wonder if you could tell us why there is a need for the Commission to be here?

AM:    So, this is a trend that’s taken place, encourage by the UN, because it was recognised there was a gap between the aspirations of International Human Rights Treaties being signed up to by the majority of member states around the world and the reality on the ground in these countries, the implementation wasn’t as it should be.  So it was felt that to occupy that middle space between the International UN Human Rights system and the reality on the ground in countries that a National Human Rights Institution was the best way of effectively promoting and protecting Human Rights within a country and being the link to the international situation.

JJ:       And finally, Alan, could you maybe tell us a bit about what the opportunities and what the challenges are for the Commission when you look ahead to the next few years?

AM:    I am excited about the potential of the Commission.  It was a lonely time when I was elected by Parliament and was literally on my own without anything for a few months and you did wonder what on earth is going to happen next and who am I going to be working with, how are we all going to get the show on the road, and in the consultations that we’ve carried out, yes, there are some sceptics out there about Human Rights.  There are some misunderstandings about Human Rights, but the scratch at the surface shows that there’s tremendous goodwill appetite and a need of better understanding and implementation of Human Rights and I think our plans for the next few years connect with that and that we will see very real outcomes in practical ways very soon.