Download the Annual Report via this link.
Introduction by CAJ Director, Daniel Holder: 2024 proved to be another challenging year for human rights work at home and abroad. It was however, a typically productive and impactful year for CAJ across our range of strategic priorities. We have a small but dynamic staff team, augmented during the year with three new staff members.
Early in 2024 we welcomed Shannon Doherty, to run our new partnership project with North West Migrants Forum funded by Esmée Fairburn, along with Dara Keeve who worked on a range of CAJ projects until November when she became the Policy and Legal Officer for the Equality Coalition. The latter was part of an exciting new project funded by the Baring Foundation to upscale the legal interventions work of the (CAJ-UNISON) Equality Coalition. In March we said goodbye to Robyn Scott who moved on having worked with us for many years in a dual communications and Equality Coalition role, that included delivering our new website last year.
During 2024 we were also grateful for the communications coordination work on our Just News newsletter by Zoha Siddiqui, who worked with us part time until she completed her studies. Into 2025, we will have a new full time Communications Officer post to maximise our output. The full staff compliment includes me as Director; Gemma McKeown, Solicitor; Úna Boyd, Immigration Solicitor; Roisín Brennan, Office and Finance Manager and Eliza Browning, Senior Policy Officer.
Under our aim of Democratic Governance we focused on seeking implementation of the rights-based provisions of the peace agreements, in particular duties to adopt an anti-poverty strategy; advocating for rights based constitutional frameworks in the context of discussions both on Stormont reform and constitutional change; implementation of commitments in relation to the Irish language; the operationalization of rights based safeguards under the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework as part of post-Brexit arrangements and specific interventions on the right to protest, including a report on the policing of environmental protestors.
In relation to Policing and Justice we continued our joint project with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) holding three seminars on policing and protest; surveillance and covert policing; and legacy. In relation to covert policing we supported journalists Barry McCaffery and Trevor Birnie in their case before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and successfully campaigned, with Amnesty International, for an independent inquiry into police spying on journalists, lawyers and NGOs in NI. This led to the establishment of the McCullough Review by the PSNI Chief Constable, and our appointment to the Group of Stakeholders and Experts (GoES) for the inquiry. CAJ also achieved significant movement from the PSNI in a policy reversal over the referrals of victims and witnesses to the Home Office.
We had a particularly busy year in relation to dealing with the legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict. We were at the forefront of challenging the controversial Northern Ireland Legacy Act, introduced by the Conservative Government, which shut down the existing ‘Package of Measures’ dealing with NI legacy cases on 1 May 2024.
We were successful in our campaign for the Irish Government to take an inter-State case against the UK Act to the European Court of Human Rights; addressed the UN Human Rights Committee who reflected our concerns; continue to be a go-to voice in the media; secured commitments from Labour in opposition; engaged in the domestic litigation; produced two new reports and engaged extensively with the new Government to press for repeal. Our most novel initiative of the year involved the International Expert Panel on Impunity and the Northern Ireland Conflict. The Panel was set up by the Human Rights Centre at the University of Oslo at the request of CAJ and the Pat Finucane Centre and produced an authoritative account in its final report which received extensive media coverage.
Our migrant rights and anti-racism work was boosted by the formalisation of the partnership project with the Derry-based North West Migrants Forum, focusing on challenging racial profiling in the border area of the Common Travel Area; rolling back the Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ in devolved competence; and tackling racist intimidation and hate crime. We urgently reorientated and upscaled our work to engaged in a rapid response to the far-right disturbances and increase in orchestrated racist attacks in NI over the Summer of 2024; holding a major seminar; being a go-to voice in the media to challenge misinformation fuelling racism; securing a much improved policing response; securing a strong recommendation from the UN CERD Committee on action over paramilitary linked racist intimidation in NI and significant movement in PSNI policy over removal of racist hate material in public space, in the context of public authority inaction due to paramilitary links.
The Equality Coalition, a network of over 100 NI NGOs and trade unions, co-convened by CAJ and UNISON continued to go from strength to strength. We held regular, packed and active members meetings coordinating interventions; delivered a programme of seminars and trainings; gave evidence to NI Assembly Committees and held a series of meetings with Stormont Ministers securing commitments. Late in 2024 we secured Baring funding to upscale the work of this key partnership.
CAJ continued our work in the international sphere regularly engaging with the Council of Europe and UN human rights mechanisms as well as EU institutions. We were active members of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) participating in their regional conference in Madrid; active members of the Strasbourg-based European Implementation Network (EIN); and joined up to the CSO Coalition on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism.
Further details on these work areas is set out in this report.
We are as ever indebted to our funders – including the core funding we receive from the Human Rights Fund, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, AB Charitable Trust and a ‘backbone’ grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. We receive major project funding from the Legal Education Foundation (T:LEF); Esmée Fairburn and the Baring Foundation. Programme support for the Equality Coalition comes from the UNISON Campaign Fund and small grants from the Community Foundations for Ireland and Northern Ireland. Without this support we could not continue to deliver our work.
CAJ is also indebted to its volunteer Executive board who bring expertise and dedication to the organisation and oversee its governance. This year long standing members of the Board were joined by three new members. Chris McCartin became our new Treasurer, and Anurag Deb and Colin Murray joined the board bringing particular constitutional law expertise. We are indebted to Professors Anna Bryson and Rory O’Connell as chair and vice chair respectively, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin in her role as just news editor, and all other board members: Louise Mallinder, Kieran McEvoy, Cathy Bollaert, Dáire McGill, Ciarán Ó Maoláin and Anne Smith.
2025 awaits us.
Daniel Holder
Director
Download the Annual Report via this link.
