"A Transitional Justice - Northern Irish home rule entrenched Bill of Rights and Freedoms."
 
The Anglo-Irish / NI conflict did not take place in a vacuum. There has been an ongoing historic conflict from the early European tribal settlements onto these islands. Extending to a settled totality in the context of emerging conflicting and competing cultural identities. In essence, at the commencement of the latest Anglo-Irish / NI conflict, on a final analyses, all that existed were the oppressors and their agents / hostages, the oppressed and those who resisted oppression. No one was neutral everyone took a side during the conflict, whether they were active, passive or ambivalent? At the end of this particular conflict, all that emerged was a set of outcomes, to include a death toll as to who had been killed, permanently injured either physically or emotionally or both; those who had allowed themselves to be owned by the empowered authorities, those who were the victims of emotional cowardice and or let themselves down, those who made the conflict about themselves, those who profited from the conflict, those who have been permanently criminalised for life; those who have been allowed to live; and the Belfast Agreement / Peace Treaty? The prime objective of the Belfast Agreement was as a peace treaty – structured to accommodate a constructed ambiguity at variance with facilitating social cohesion and community integration and open to political sophistry in an institutional and community situational positioning of an inconclusive political and cultural struggle. The central theme running through this transitional justice approach to the establishment of a statutory entrenched, Northern Irish Home Rule Bill of Rights and Freedoms, is a continuous thread aimed at protecting and preserving the integrity of the Northern Irish system of jurisprudence based on the common law of England. The Anglo-Irish / NI conflict resolution process is dependent on this thread as an enabling transitional justice mechanism, underpinning constitutional and institutional change in assisting a society emerging out of conflict. The aims and objectives of a transitional justice approach to a managed change process, is to build on the Belfast Agreement / Treaty, by incorporating the Belfast agreement and the constitutional principles contained therein; together with the agreed institutions supporting democracy into a statutory entrenched NI Home Rule Bill of Rights and Freedoms. A set of protective rights, specific to the new Northern Irish Political State, relating to perceived superior absolute constitutional and inherent cultural human sovereign rights and freedoms; A set of NI citizen freedom of choice optional rights aimed at assisting situations involving competing and conflicting rights, in relation to Christian conscience, equality of treatment, and the citizens freedom of choice optional rights; the European convention on human rights and freedoms 1950; and a standard set of civil and human rights; a Canadian style notwithstanding clause; a set of social, economic imperative rights. The proposed NI Home Rule Bill of Rights blueprint will be supported by the adoption of a set of peace process conceptions, incorporated into a Declaration by HMG and the Government of Ireland and into a Preamble to the Bill of Rights and Freedoms, establishing the entrenchment of the concept of Northern Irish “constitutional sovereignty”, as distinct from national sovereignty, supported by a Northern Irish supremacy law clause. This transitional justice approach is assisted by a perusal of the processes of managed constitutional change in other rule of law democracies with a jurisprudence based on the common law of England. Regrettably after thirty years of conflict and twenty years of the Belfast agreement. This peace process has stalled short of fully implementing the Belfast Agreement. In particular, an agreement to a Northern Irish Bill of Rights, mandated by the Belfast Agreement? The peace process is in danger of collapsing if Northern Ireland is taken out of the EEA/ Single Market/ Customs Union as distinct from the European Union. A border poll will become a constitutional imperative and the outcome will further polarise the peace process and or may result in a possible further repartition of the island of Ireland, if the Belfast Agreement collapses? If the peace process is to be saved, it is a moral imperative that the Belfast agreement be incorporated into a statutory entrenched Northern Irish Home Rule Bill of Rights and Freedoms. Thereby, enabling the development of a shared society by agreement and consent, facilitating a process of social cohesion and community integration. A successful outcome would in the author’s opinion be the ultimate demise of the DUP, UUP, SINN FEIN, SDLP, AP replaced by a NI progressive democratic party, a NI socialist / labour party, a NI liberal / NI green parties etc. Operating in a circumstance of a constitutional and institutional framework, amounting to an Irish 32 county Irish political and cultural sovereignty. Albeit, in two separate Irish sovereign political states, supported by the institutions of democracy and options for change, contained in the Belfast Agreement; underpinned by a system of jurisprudence based on the common law of England.  
 
A transitional justice research approach by 
 
John A. Coyle BA (Econ). BSc (Hons). BSc (Hons) Psych., LL.M,
Pg. D. L. S., / GDL (CPE / LSF). H. Dip. Adult & Community Ed. (NUI).
Commissioner for oaths.
 
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