Stormont House Agreement: Model Implementation Bill

This 'Model Bill' would, if enacted, give legislative effect to particular elements of the Stormont House Agreement (SHA), which was published on 23 December 2014 following negotiations between the British and Irish governments and the political parties in the Northern Ireland Executive. In addition to the provisions relating to 'The Past', the Stormont House Agreement contains provisions on: finance and welfare; flags, identity, culture and tradition; parades; institutional reform; outstanding commitments; and review and monitoring. These provisions are not contained in this Model Bill and will not, as we understand it, be included in the UK government's planned legislation which will focus exclusively on the past-related elements of the Agreement.The drafting committee was keen that the government's draft Bill should not be the only starting point for public debate. We wished to ensure that civil society in Northern Ireland had a full opportunity to contribute to the legislative process; to ensure full compliance with the UK's international obligations, particularly Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); and to follow closely the principles in paragraph 21 of the SHA:. . . an approach to dealing with the past . . . which respects the following principles: promoting reconciliation; upholding the rule of law; acknowledging and addressing the suffering of victims and survivors; facilitating the pursuit of justice and information recovery; is human rights compliant; and is balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and reasonable. We believed that drafting this Model Bill, in addition to the various other policy outputs produced by the team over the past number of years would enhance that process.The SHA contains much less detail than the proposals on the past put forward by Dr Richard Haass and Professor Meghan O'Sullivan (Haass-O'Sullivan proposals) during the earlier negotiating process which ended in late 2013. There are many issues where the SHA has left the detail of implementation for later resolution. Our Model Bill, which we wish to focus more directly on Article 2 compliance and the 'paragraph 21 principles' in the SHA, proposes alternative solutions to the leaked Westminster draft Bill on some of these issues.