Guest Piece by Michael Farrell: European Anti-Racism Body Follows Up on Ireland

Michael Farrell is Senior Solicitor with FLAC and the Irish member of ECRI.

In early 2012, the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) sent a mission to Ireland to report on the treatment of ethnic minorities, immigrants and asylum-seekers, and Government action to combat racism.

The Commission published its report in February 2013, including 35 recommendations, and under a new policy it singled out three of these for an interim follow-up procedure.  These interim recommendations are selected as things that can be done with measurable effect within a fairly short period. The Government is asked to report back in two years on what it has done to implement them. ECRI will then decide whether the interim recommendations have been fully, or partially implemented, or not implemented at all, and will publish a further short report setting out its conclusions.

The three interim recommendations selected for Ireland deal with:

• The long-promised Immigration Residence and Protection Bill: ECRI has called for a single process for dealing with applications for asylum and subsidiary protection, the introduction of a long-term residence status, and registration of non-national minors under 16.

• The proposed Workplace Relations Commission which will replace the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the Labour Court and the Equality Tribunal: ECRI has sought assurances that there would continue to be a genuinely independent body, other than the courts, to deal with complaints of discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

• The application of the Habitual Residence Condition (HRC): ECRI has called for foreseeability in the application of this condition and in particular for the publication of decisions by bodies dealing with decisions as to whether persons satisfied the HRC.  This would mainly relate to the Social Welfare Appeals Office.

The text of the interim recommendations can be found here and the full text of the Report on Ireland can be found here.

The Government has now been asked to provide information on its implementation of the interim recommendations by 3^rd April 2015. NGOs, interested bodies, and individuals can also submit information to ECRI on these issues by the same date.  A subcommittee of ECRI will then review the Government’s record and report to a plenary meeting in December.  That meeting will adopt its final conclusions, which will be published in February 2016.

What is ECRI?

ECRI is a body set up by the Council of Europe which in turn brings together 47 member states stretching from Iceland in the West to Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the East, and includes every European state except Belarus. ECRI was set up in 1993 with a mandate to combat to combat racism and intolerance and consists of one member from every state and a permanent secretariat, based in Strasbourg.

ECRI’s members are nominated by the governments of the various states but once appointed they take an oath to act completely independently.  Its major function is compiling reports on all the member states in five year cycles.  Teams of two ECRI members or rapporteurs and one or two members of the secretariat visit each state, briefed by the secretariat, which keeps abreast of developments in each state in between monitoring visits.

The ECRI mission meets government officials, members of NGOs and national human rights bodies, and representatives of ethnic minorities to try to get an accurate picture of the situation in the country they are visiting. Sadly, at the moment the rise in far-right anti-semitic, anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant organisations in much of Europe and the spread of hate speech directed against vulnerable groups gives them plenty to report on as well as the widespread hostility to Roma and Travellers.

The rapporteurs and secretariat then draw up a draft report which tries to describe the situation as accurately as possible and commend examples of good practice as well as criticising abuses and sets out recommendations for improvement. The report is sent to the government in question which may seek to correct factual errors but cannot require changes in the views or conclusions expressed.  The report is then discussed at a plenary session of ECRI, submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and published.

If the government involved disagrees strongly with the conclusions of the report, it can insist that an appendix setting out its views be published with the report but the appendix is clearly distinguished from the text.

ECRI has now begun its fifth cycle of country visits and its reports provide a valuable record of the treatment of minorities over time in every country in Europe and it also draws upon those records and the expertise of its members to develop General Policy Recommendations as a guide to better practice in areas related to racism and intolerance.  It is currently working on new General Policy Recommendations on combating Hate Speech and the treatment of Irregular Migrants in European countries.

LGBT issues

Last year (2014) it was agreed that ECRI’s mandate would be extended to include monitoring LGBT issues during its country visits; an appropriate development given that the rise in racism, especially in Eastern and Central Europe, is often accompanied by homophobia.  The first reports to include LGBT issues were published recently and from now on all ECRI missions will look at discrimination or intolerance based on sexual orientation or gender identity as well as on ethnic origin.

Any organisation that wants to contact ECRI can do so at: ECRI, Directorate of Human Dignity and Equality, Council of Europe, F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex, France or ecri@coe.int.