Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): I welcome Kent Roach to the meeting. He is joining us from Canada. Kent, can you begin your briefing?

Professor Kent Roach (University of Toronto): Thank you very much for asking me to speak to you. I wish you all the very best in your deliberations. As you see, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was added to the Canadian constitution in 1982. In my view, it has been a success, which is not to say that improvements cannot be made to it. However, I think that it is important to realise that it was our second try at a bill of rights. We had a statutory bill of rights in 1960, which, in many ways, the courts and civil society were not ready to use as an instrument.

Of particular interest to you, I think, in thinking about a Northern Irish bill of rights is that the Canadian charter goes beyond the conventional rights that you will find in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or the American Bill of Rights, and it has rights that are really central to the history and multicultural nature of Canada. For example, there are linguistic rights that are rights on the use of French and English in federal institutions and in the province of New Brunswick. Minority language school rights — that means positive rights with a variety of socio-economic and cultural rights — are provided in the charter. Those have largely been a success, although there has had to be some litigation, and one of the things that I will touch on later is the use of effective remedies in litigation.

There are other things that are particular to the Canadian nature, and I direct to your attention to sections 27, 28 and 29 of the Canadian charter. In recognition of the multicultural nature of Canada, section 27 talks about rights being "interpreted in a manner consistent". Section 28 was added at the last minute because of concerns about women's groups, and it says:

Section 29 is a provision that recognises that in our first constitutional document in 1867 there were denominational school rights for the Catholic minority in Ontario and the Protestant minority in Quebec. Those provisions — sections 27 to 29 — have not really featured that much in our over 30 years of charter jurisprudence.

As you may know, I am not in the camp of those like Jeremy Waldron and Richard Elkins who see a bill of rights as undemocratic.

Like many Canadian scholars, such as the late Peter Hogg, I have written about the charter as promoting a democratic dialogue between the courts and the legislature. It is important to underline that the engine of dialogue, that is, the idea that a bill of rights does not need to produce judicial supremacy, is not the "Notwithstanding clause" in section 33 of the charter, which has never been used by the federal Government and is rarely used by the provinces, but is rather our general limitations clause in section 1. That provides that all the rights in the charter are subject to:

The "Notwithstanding clause" applies only to some of the rights in the charter, but section 1 provides all the rights. It is there that the back and forth really goes on, on issues like tobacco advertising and criminal law rights. There has been a lot of back and forth, with the courts saying, "This version is not justified", and Parliament often very quickly coming back with a new version. I see that as a healthy interchange.

Just to round out, because I want to leave you time for questions, I will address five things about the charter that I would change or improve. Obviously, no document is perfect, and it was drafted a long time ago — well, I mean, I was alive and I was in university, but that is just ageing myself.

The first thing I would change is the deficiency in our pre-enactment scrutiny. There are a lot of models that you can look at. The federal Department of Justice has, in recent years, tried to improve that by going beyond its statutory duty, which it has never exercised, by reporting that a public Bill is inconsistent with the charter to trying to have more of a free-flowing charter statement. Even with that improvement, I do not think that we, in Canadian legislatures, look at the charter implications of laws. That also explains why there are still fairly high strike-down rates. The charter should play a role in the legislative process, although I hasten to add that my personal belief is that it needs to be focused on limitations rather than on Jeremy Waldron's idea that any reasonable interpretation of a right prevails. My problem with Professor Waldron's approach is that it will generally be the majority's reasonable interpretations in a legislature, and courts and human rights tribunals have important anti-majoritarian roles. I would not look to Canada on pre-enactment scrutiny.

Secondly, the remedial performance of Canadian courts has not been great. We have a general "Remedies" clause that says that "a court of competent jurisdiction" can award any "appropriate and just" remedy, but our courts have often relied upon general declarations whose meanings are sometimes difficult for governments and civil society to understand exactly. We had one case where the Supreme Court, in a 5:4 decision, said that there could be continuing jurisdiction, that is, a court could ask government to report back on the underconstruction of minority language school facilities. However, that was a very controversial case.

Since that 2002 case, our courts have been fairly deferential on remedies. That has created some legitimate dissatisfaction, because, obviously, a right that does not have an effective remedy or a process to resolve disputes about the remedy is not going to be meaningful. One thing that I have tried to champion in Canada, without success, is the idea of what I call a declaration-plus. That is when a court declares the existence of rights, perhaps in a general way, but retains jurisdiction. It could also be done through a reference procedure as further disputes and complications arise about the meaning of those rights. There is also an idea that, if there is a declaration, there is a legitimate expectation that governments will consult with the holders of the rights about exactly what it means, because, generally, courts operate at the 10,000-foot level, and, when you get down into the trenches, the questions become much more difficult.

Thirdly, we have used suspended declarations of invalidity a lot, even though they are not specifically provided for in the charter, and we do not have the like of the South African constitution, which provides it. They have been fairly useful, although we need to think about what happens to the applicant if they receive a suspended declaration or even a non-binding declaration of incompatibility. I believe that, south of you, the Irish bill provides for the idea that you could at least give the applicant damages, although my preference is to allow the court to make that decision.

The fourth point is the "Notwithstanding clause". I agree with it, but if I were redesigning the charter, I would say that it could be used only after and in response to a court or tribunal decision. I say that because it allows for dialogue, so the public, which can then hold the Government responsible for the use of the notwithstanding clause, will at least know what is at the other side. When you use the clause without a court decision, there is often a danger that it is used as a populist tool and something for combating a straw person.

Finally, it is regrettable that socio-economic rights were not included in the charter, but your next witness will speak to that in greater detail. We included cultural rights, but the next generation should include some form of socio-economic rights.

Those are my initial thoughts. There is a lot more that I could say, and I look forward to your questions.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you very much for your presentation. I will start the questions. You pointed out the things that you would add to or change about the charter. Obviously, the North is in the process of leaving the EU, which leaves us in a period of transition. What could we add to our rights in the face of Brexit?

Professor Roach: I am not an expert on Brexit, but, from the little that I know about Northern Ireland, it seems that the peace agreement is essential to Northern Ireland.

You can use a bill of rights to express elements of your particular society's values and history, and that can be done through a range of ways. It can be done through explicit rights; it can be done by saying that rights will not affect a pre-existing value or institution, and it can be done through an interpretive way.

I also think that you need to think about what the legitimate objectives of limits on rights are. So, the European Convention and the Human Rights Act stem from a time where there are particular rights: public order, safety, reputation and the rights of others. The Canadian model is, in many ways, one where almost any objective goes. However, I have written about how some of the objectives are so symbolic that they are not really amenable to proportionality analysis, which is generally a fairly instrumental form of analysis which says, "Look, here is an objective: public safety. Is this limit on rights really necessary in order to achieve public safety?". When legislatures have very symbolic and vague objectives like preserving decency and preserving the rule of law, then the problem with that for courts and tribunals is that it is difficult to subject that to proportionality analysis in asking whether it is rationally connected, whether it is the least drastic means and whether it has an overall balance.

Therefore, you might want to think about what the lists are of whatever rights you come up with that can reflect Northern Ireland's values and aspirations but also think about what the range of legitimate objectives are. It may be that, to preserve things that you value that could be threatened by Brexit, that should be specifically enunciated. It is always a battle because bills of rights are supposed to be written to last for a long time, but I would also take from the Canadian experience that, in 1982, we put down things that we thought were important to Canadian identity, particularly with respect to cultural and multicultural rights, and those have not done us wrong over the 35 years and more that we have had the charter.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you. There are a couple of elements that are topical with what you are saying when you look at the Canadian charter. On the mobility of citizens, we are having a conversation because we are, obviously, staying in the ECHR but we will lose the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union when we leave the EU. There are worries, therefore, about how the mobility rights of citizens in the North are going to be maintained. Will you give an opinion on how we could maintain the rights that are in the charter, or how to try and plug that gap with a bill of rights?

Professor Roach: That is a tricky question. You are right that we have mobility rights in the Canadian charter; they have not been very much litigated, but they are mobility rights within Canada, so it is about going from one province to another province. The other thing that I probably should have mentioned in my original talk is that there is a commitment in the charter to affirmative action, which is in section 15(2) with respect to equality rights and in section 6(3) and 6(4) with respect to mobility rights. This was designed so that a province like Newfoundland and Labrador could favour the hiring of its citizens.

I think that, in your situation, the issue of mobility rights may be a little more tricky if you are talking about mobility rights to England, Scotland, Wales or the Republic, because that would involve extraterritorial issues. For what it is worth, the Canadian courts have really struggled with the issue of how the charter applies beyond the borders. I am sorry; that is all the help that I think I can be on that particular question.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you. What you are saying flags up an interesting point because we live in a place where a portion of the population identifies with the South of Ireland and as Irish, and a portion of the population identifies with the mainland UK and as British. Therefore, there are mobility challenges for both groups in that. It is about borders and then about borders that people do not think of as such. It is difficult to navigate, I suppose.

Professor Roach: Yes. The symbolics of any bill of rights also requires you to think about issues of equality and reciprocity. That has certainly been the case in Canadian history. As far back as 1867, there is a reciprocity about how the Protestant minority is treated in Quebec and how the Catholic minority is treated in Ontario. That remains very important. Again, there are lots of other examples, outside Canada, where there are directive principles, preambles and the like. You obviously want to consider the full range of ways in which to express the values of Northern Ireland that you very much hope to preserve in what, I appreciate, are very difficult challenges that you currently face.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you very much. I will pass to other members.

Mr Nesbitt: Professor, thank you for your presentation. There are three areas that I would like to explore with you. The first is the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary. Could it be said that a bill of rights makes the legislature less supreme, and the judiciary then becomes the ultimate arbiter? Yet, in your case, the notwithstanding clause suggests that actually the legislature retains ultimate control. Is that a tension? How do you resolve that?

Professor Roach: It is a creative tension. I actually do not support either legislative or judicial supremacy. In a democracy, we should not really think about who has the final word. As I said, I think that it is a misconception, especially outside Canada, that it is the notwithstanding clause that really does the work of interchange and dialogue. It is the limitations clause and ideas of proportionality which are really increasingly recognised in human rights law throughout the world.

Most of the creative tension is when the legislature does something, often for a really good reason, and what the court does, in part motivated by the concerns of real people and litigants, is to say, "Well, what about the effects on these people or this person? Is there any way in which you could achieve that objective without doing that much harm to them?". I say that not because I think that courts are good and legislatures are bad, or vice versa, but simply because the institutional position of a legislature means that it will probably neglect individuals who, for whatever reason, have not appeared before it or its committees to voice their concerns. Courts have to listen to those individuals. That is why I think that you have a more democratic balance if you have both legislative and judicial voices.

Even with respect to the notwithstanding clause, it is a mistake to think that the legislature uses it and the legislature wins, because when the clause is used, it expires in five years. Five years was chosen very deliberately because there is also a constitutional requirement, I believe in section four of the charter, that there have to be elections every five years. In some ways, when the legislature uses the notwithstanding clause, they are committing themselves to renewing that debate. An interesting example was when Québec used its notwithstanding clause to affirm legislation to protect and to promote the French language in 1988, but by 1993 it allowed the override to lapse. That was, in part, because people went to international committees under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, they went to the UN Human Rights Commissioner, but also, matters and tempers had cooled down in the previous five years.

The notwithstanding clause, which is not the main engine of dialogue, is not about the final word; it is about committing to a social process on having a debate. When the notwithstanding clause expires in five years, the legislature could renew it, but if it chooses not to, then in cases where there has been a judicial decision, that decision still rises like a phoenix afterwards. It is very much not about who has the last word but a process that allows for best government. I have a lot of respect for legislatures and for courts, but they essentially do different jobs. We are all better off when they can both do their jobs.

Mr Nesbitt: Thank you. Second point. Do you think that a bill of rights is more effective in a jurisdiction that has a written constitution?

Professor Roach: No, I do not. Charter interpretation by our courts is very different from interpretation of other parts of our written constitution. I do think that a bill of rights is only going to be of value to the extent that litigants and tribunals, whether it is the ordinary courts or a human rights tribunal, are prepared to accept it. That is why I mentioned the 1960 Canadian bill of rights. Our courts were really just not prepared to interpret human rights from 1960 until 1982. They were criticised by academics and by civil society. When the charter was enacted in 1982, the courts saw that as an opportunity to do a better job and learned the lessons of the failed Canadian bill of rights. I do not think that it is necessarily to do with a written constitution, but you need to have a bill of rights that excites people, that has civil society conferences and academic conferences, because there is a lot of work that has to be done in order to prepare for bill of rights.

One of the interesting things is that equality rights under the Canadian charter did not take effect until 1985. The rest of the charter took effect in April 1982, but there was a three-year preparation for equality rights. That was supposed to be so that governments and legislatures could get their house in order. The other thing that it did was to allow a spate of civil society and academic activism about what "equality" meant, because under the Canadian bill of rights, the courts said fairy ridiculous things, such as if you discriminate against a pregnant woman, that it is not because of gender, it is because of pregnancy. That was just a silly, formalistic, legalistic decision.

It was partly because so many people had criticised and, frankly, ridiculed that judicial decision that our Supreme Court took a substantive equality approach, which, interestingly enough, had been pioneered not by the ordinary courts but by the human rights tribunals. My advice for you is this: make sure that whoever will interpret and litigate this new bill of rights has lots of preparation time, is enthusiastic and will make the words on paper take life.

Mr Nesbitt: Thank you, Professor. Finally, paragraph 5 of the charter says:

Infamously, this legislature collapsed in 2017 and did not meet for three years. How would you enforce paragraph 5?

Professor Roach: That is a great question. Of course, we have not had that experience, although, you never know, there may be litigation, given that we are going into a throne speech, most of the Opposition are out sick, and we have not provided for virtual voting.

The courts or tribunals would have to do that through their declaration power. I do not think that the courts would order the legislature back in terms of injunctive relief, but, again, that is why you need to have remedial creativity and a space between a declaration and an injunction. A declaration is basically the court saying, "You really should do this", and an injunction is, "You must do this, and, if you do not, it could be contempt of court". We need a space between the two. I hope that the court would declare that the right exists and perhaps be open to any possible justification about why a limit on that right is necessary.

Mr Nesbitt: Professor, thank you very much.

Ms Bradshaw: Thank you very much for your presentation. It has been fascinating so far. A few weeks ago, we had a presentation on the South African experience, and I was struck by how important its preamble was in setting the context of its shared history — maybe, contested history is a better term. I do not think that there is a preamble in your bill of rights, but to what degree do you think that it should be an important part of ours?

Professor Roach: Our preamble has not really played much of a role. Canada is founded on principles that recognise the supremacy of God and the rule of law. There has been some litigation about the rule of law, but the courts have not really done a lot with the preamble. This really speaks to the different audiences of the preamble. Courts are not always enthusiastic about preambles and tend to see them as political surpluses, but I think that civil society and citizens take preambles seriously. I am not opposed to a much more elaborate preamble, and I certainly understand why South Africa used one. That may be appropriate in the Northern Irish context, but the lesson of the charter is that you should take some of the values and aspirations that you articulate in the preamble and think about ways of working them into the actual rights, limits or non-derogation clauses in the operative provisions of the bill of rights.

Ms Bradshaw: At the very end of your formal presentation, you said that maybe they should have moved towards the inclusion of socio-economic rights. Will you elaborate on that, please?

Professor Roach: Sure. This may be relevant to the previous member's question about the European charter of rights. It seems to me that, in our world of growing inequality and, perhaps, scarcity going forward, political and civil rights are really not meaningful if you do not have shelter or food. We need to think about the way to incorporate that. The South African constitution provides one way, and the Indian constitution and the constitution of the Republic of Ireland provide other ways, but it seems to me that the trend of history is towards judicable social and economic rights, although subject to reasonable limitations and, perhaps, progressive realisation. A bill of rights has to be practical, and you have to think about how those social and economic rights will be enforced. There was some discussion at one point about amending the charter to provide for social and economic rights that would be enforced not by the courts but by a different institution. Without saying that one is superior to the other, I think that social and economic rights are necessary to make all of the other rights meaningful to real people, but I also think that, whatever method you choose, you have to think very, very carefully about enforcement. In some ways, I think that the days of simple directive principles have passed and that, if you do not have some meaningful way of enforcing socio-economic rights, it can create cynicism about all the rights.

Ms Bradshaw: I want to bottom that out a bit: a premise that has come up quite a bit is around environmental rights. To what degree is a discussion going on in Canada around those and maybe taking that forward?

Professor Roach: Again, I come back to the practicalities. One of the problems is that it is not clear that someone would have standing to vindicate environmental rights unless they could demonstrate some personal effect. I think that environmental rights are important, and, again, I suggest that, whatever way you go, you think about how you will enforce them and on whom. I think that you need to have broad standing rules that allow civil society groups, not simply affected individuals, to bring these collective claims in areas such as environmental rights. I think that, in some ways, you cannot rely upon the courts to be creative. Some courts have been creative, but many have not, so you really need to think through the nitty-gritty of standing and enforcement when it comes to environmental and other forms of social and economic collective rights.

Ms Bradshaw: Thank you very much.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you very much, Professor, for your presentation. A number of the areas that I wanted to touch on have already been referred to. What do you advise in respect of remedies that could be used by courts, rather than merely striking down legislation?

Professor Roach: Thank you very much. It is an area that I have written on. I think that you want to think about a suspension power. I think that, in our era, the strike-down or even the declaration of incompatibility is too blunt a remedy. There may be areas where the courts have something important to say but do not want to create a legislative vacuum. Drawing on South Africa, Canada and on Germany, which also uses this, a suspended declaration says, basically, that something is unconstitutional or is contrary to the bill of rights but gives a year or two years to fix it.

You could be more creative than Canadian or South African courts have been and think about a process. Courts are not experts on the substance, but they are experts on the process. Something where the court would say, "You have two years to fix it, but I think you need to consult x, y and z", should be looked at.

Also, I think that this idea that, when courts declare rights, they are functus — that their decision is over — is something that you want to rethink. If you have a judge or a tribunal who has heard a lot of evidence in a particular area, that person has expertise, and it is expertise that the public has paid for, so you want to think of creative ways in which that person could come back. In one of our leading minority language education cases, a judge said that basically the whole province of Nova Scotia had not complied with French-language facilities. He was dealing with five different regions of the province, which is about the size of Northern Ireland, so there was a lot of geographical complexity. The judge said, "I want the Government to report back periodically by way of affidavit about what is happening, and I will allow the other side, the French-language parents, to comment on those affidavits". That was upheld by a narrow majority of our Supreme Court but seems to me to an eminently sensible device that actually benefited the Government.

What happens if they are trying to build a school and there is a construction strike, a shortage or some other unanticipated problem? The ability of the parties, in a fair and open way, to come back to the tribunal for further advice is, frankly, an efficient and effective way to govern. However, that was extremely controversial, because four of our judges said that, once the judge made his ruling, he was functus — he was done and had no other part.

You have to anticipate that courts are, by nature, conservative institutions, and you have to nudge them towards more creative remedies. Certainly, a basket clause that allows the court to come up with new remedies but also examples of new remedies, such as suspensions or what I call a declaration-plus — that is, a declaration with retention of jurisdiction, which normally occurs with only injunctive relief, which has to be very specific because it can be enforced through contempt of court.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): If that is you finished, we will go to the videoconferencing. I am not sure if Mark has any questions.

Mr Durkan: Thank you, professor, for the presentation. It was very informative and interesting. As I am going last, a lot of the stuff that I was going to ask will have been asked.

I am particularly interested in the issue of socio-economic rights and the failure or neglect, as you maybe saw it, to include them in the Canadian charter. While the bill of rights is seen, largely, as a focus on the rights of an individual, do you see the inclusion of socio-economic rights as a means of tackling wider issues such as regional economic imbalance and things like that? Northern Ireland is a lot smaller than Canada, but within it there are areas with a huge disparity in economic performance.

Professor Roach: I do. I am not even sure if it is just socio-economic rights. You can use equality rights to deal with pre-existing disadvantages. If you have an economically disadvantaged community, you want to define equality rights in a way that ensures that they get equal treatment from the government, whether in policing or cultural and recreational activities. You may even want to put in an affirmative action mandate. Section 15(2) of the Canadian charter talks about how programmes that are designed to ameliorate the conditions of disadvantaged individuals and groups are consistent with equality rights.

This was wisely put into the charter because we realised that a

sense of equality before the law can have a retrogressive effect. We are all equal in that we cannot sleep under a bridge, to paraphrase one author. I think about it in terms of equality rights, but also socio-economic rights. When it comes to socio-economic rights, I agree that they can be something that can help deal with class inequities, which are growing everywhere in the world. There is a history of class inequities in Northern Ireland, and there is concern about the historical legacy of employment discrimination and the like, and that should be taken seriously.

However, going back to my pet topic of remedies, one of the things that South African courts have done really well is to provide interim emergency remedies against things like evictions. The South African courts are not going to be able — no court is going to be able — to build better housing, but they can say, "You are not going to evict this person until you come up with some reasonable alternative". This goes to their ability to look at the plight of the individuals who appear before them. It is those remedies in South Africa that have actually had the most bite. Again, this is consistent with what I am saying about dialogue, because the court is saying, "This person is going to be put out on the street. They have nowhere else to go. Government, you have to do something about this", but also, "Government, you need to consult with the affected communities about what the best way forward is". Increasingly, one of the lessons is that even disadvantaged communities have a lot of practical wisdom and expertise. They live their disadvantage every day. You need to ensure that future governments are forced to sit down with disadvantaged groups and individuals to think about practical solutions.

A bill of rights can add what I think of as a legal emergency room, right? When we have a health crisis, we walk into A&E. Courts need to be made more accessible, and you need to think about interim remedies that are available before a full trial. So if someone is about to be evicted, or if someone is about to have benefits cut off in a way that means they can no longer afford medicines for their children, they can get interim relief. Now it may be that you do not want courts and tribunals telling you exactly what medicines someone on social assistance should receive, but they can respond to individual cases of injustice, try to fix them, and then construct a process that will force the government to reconsider and justify the choices that it makes in the allocation of scarce resources. Hopefully, in a post-COVID world, we are all going to be dealing with fewer resources, but that does not mean that government should not have to justify how they spend the diminishing revenues that they have to deal with.

Mr Durkan: Again, that is very interesting. I am definitely glad to hear a lot of that.

On historical issues, we are aware, in our wee part of the world, of employment discrimination etc. Fortunately, we now have laws in place to prevent that, and, on the whole, they do a fairly good job. However, these things are historical, and they run deep. Some still run deep today, although not employment discrimination. It is almost as though there is a systemic, or an inherent, geographical discrimination, not necessarily at a political level but in the mechanics of the Civil Service, in how decisions are made and how funding is awarded to certain areas. Of course, there is a huge knock-on impact on the population of those areas. We have plenty of lived experience here.

Professor Roach: I do not doubt that, and you are the expert. The Canadian model provided for affirmative action for disadvantaged groups, including on mobility rights. My Newfoundland example is an example of a province that, before it had a little bit of oil, really suffered disproportionate hardships in Canada. These things were included in the charter. They did not want someone from an advantaged group saying that they were being treated unequally because the Government were giving preference to a historically disadvantaged group. The fact that that was included in the charter pointed towards an idea that we would have substantive equality based on outcomes and resolves, as opposed to formal equality based on treating every person the same, regardless of their history, their family's history and their community's history. We built in that idea of substantive equality. From the start of the formulation of charter, it was largely women's groups that were very disenchanted with the formal equality analysis that had produced stupid decisions such as, "We are discriminating against you because you are pregnant, not because you are a woman".

When we opened the negotiation of the charter, it was opened not to experts like me but to civil society groups. We had a joint committee. This happened in late 1980 and early 1981, when a committee, very much like yours, sat in a big railway station in Ottawa and listened to almost any civil society group that came up. A lot of those groups made concrete proposals on what would be added to a draft of the charter, and those proposals made the charter very much stronger. On the basis of the Canadian experience, I would say that, once you have come up with a draft, take it on the road: take it to those communities, and allow individuals and civil society to have their say. When I look at certain parts of zthe charter, I know that a certain provision is there because the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which had only 5,000 people, went to the joint committee and convinced them to add it, even though the Government — the original drafters — did not think that it was a good idea. The charter was very much enriched by civil society participation, and there is nothing like a draft to focus people's minds. I am not criticising you at all, and I am happy that you are talking to so-called experts. However, once you have come up with a draft, take it on the road, make sure that it is in every newspaper and online, and listen to ordinary citizens and the youth.

You talk about environmental issues, and it is our children who have the most at stake. One of the ways that you can make a bill of rights that is partly about the universal things that concern all humans but which also reflects the particular place that you live is to do your best with the draft but be open to suggestions for improvements.

Mr Durkan: Yes. It is obviously vital that people have their say, but, in some areas, people are tired of saying what they have to say. It is just a means of saying, "No, this really matters. This can change". So many decisions today seem to be based on or be a consequence of historical and unjust decisions made 50 or 60 years ago. Other members here will be sick of hearing those of us from Derry talking about it but, at the time, a decision was taken not to establish Ulster University's base here in my home city of Derry and instead put it in Belfast, where you already have Queen's University. Since then, hundreds of millions of pounds have been pumped into Belfast, whereas the campus in Derry has, basically, been hollowed out; because that is where everything is, it is where everything goes.

Professor Roach: Something like section 15(2) of the charter, which talks about ameliorating the conditions of not only disadvantaged individuals or groups but regions within the community, would at least protect you. You might want to be more ambitious and have a commitment in the bill of rights to ameliorate the conditions of disadvantaged parts of society but at least think about something like section 15(2) and section 6(4), which provide a carve-out for these important attempts to remedy historical inequities.

Mr Durkan: OK. That will be easy to remember: 15 stone 2 pounds is my weight, and 6 feet 4 inches is my height. Very good.

Professor Roach: Thank you. Congratulations on being so tall [Laughter.]

Mr Durkan: I have grown through my hair; that is the problem.

Professor Roach: I have too.

Mr Durkan: Cheers.

Professor Roach: Cheers.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Does John have any questions?

Mr O'Dowd: I am OK, Chair. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): That is grand. Professor, thank you very much for your time. You can take your ease now.

Professor Roach: OK. Thank you very much. It has been a pleasure. Bye-bye.