crozier rebuffed
TRANSCRIPT
Fortnight Publications Ltd.
Crozier RebuffedAuthor(s): Simon LeeSource: Fortnight, No. 289 (Nov., 1990), p. 8Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552587 .
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Unwillingly to school??pupils arriving at Hazelwood
IntegratedCollege in north Belfast
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Crozier rebuffed IN the High Court in Belfast last
month, Lord Justice MacDermott
ruled against the Catholic bishops'
challenge to parts of last year's Education Reform Order dealing with integrated education.
The judge assumed, for the pur
poses of the case, that by placing a
"duty to encourage and facilitate
integrated education" on the De
partment of Education, the order
treated integrated schools more
favourably. But he would not ac
cept this amounted to discrimina
tion on either ground prohibited in
section 17 ofthe Northern Ireland
Constitution Act of 1973.
It was not discrimination on the
ground of religious belief, for "it is
all other schools and those who are
associated with them who are dis
advantaged": if the 99 per cent of
non-integrated schools are some
how disadvantaged, that includes
controlled (Protestant) schools. Add
to that that some Catholics attend
integrated and controlled schools
and the bishops were struggling. Which led their counsel to ar
gue the order might discriminate
on the ground of political opinion.
Again the judge disagreed, saying the government's attitude towards
integrated education was "founded
in what I consider to be the non
political belief that as a matter of
educational policy it is in the public interest to support integrated edu
cation. Certainly any less favour
able treatment suffered by the class
which the Applicants represent is
not suffered by reason of their po litical opinion alone because that
class could embrace every possible shade of political opinion."
Nor was the judge impressed by
ingenious attempts to interpret 'discrimination' in the 1973 Act
broadly, by reference to the Lords'
decision in the sex discrimination
case James v Eastleigh. He pre ferred the robust view of Lord Grif
fiths in that case, that the question of discrimination "does not permit of much refinement... it is a ques tion of fact which has to be an
swered by applying common sense
to the facts of the particular case".
This was exactly what Lord
Justice MacDermott did. And he
had the common sense to deliver
judgment while the bishops were
scattered from Rome to the United
States, which gives all sides time to
absorb the arguments before an
appeal is considered.
It was clear during this sum
mer's hearing that the judge regret ted the breakdown of trust between
the government and the bishops.
How, now, about talks about talks,
rather than appeal after appeal? The
department ought to be magnani mous and offer to reconsider the
asymmetry of some provisions of
the order?such as for schools
moving from one sector to another.
Likewise, acceptance of the
verdict by the bishops might be a
sign ofthe goodwill they professed when they claimed: 'The church
does nothing to obstruct or oppose the efforts of people whose sincer
ity we respect and who feel that this
(viz the establishment of integrated
schools) is the way forward." It is
better for bishops to be more sued
against?as when Dr Cahal Daly, in the neighbouring court, defeated
the challenge from the rebel priest Fr Buckley?than suing.
Lord Justice MacDermott ended
with a plea to the drafters of legis lation?which became even more
poignant with the fair employment fiasco [see opposite]. Observing that the new law was in effect a sup
plement to an earlier order, he said:
"Where individual members ofthe
public are expected to participate in the administration of the educa
tion system it would seem to me to
be desirable that they should only have to refer to one document and
that that document should be ex
pressed in crisp and easily under
stood language." Amen.
Simon Lee
Politics is child's play
NORTHERN Ireland is only one of
many divided societies throughout the world. Its differences, however,
have resulted in a sectarianism and
prejudice which manifest them
selves in violent outbursts in each
generation. It is not surprising, then,
that its children absorb feelings of
hatred and intolerance towards 'the
other side'.
To combat such sectarianism,
PlayBoard Northern Ireland, a
voluntary body promoting oppor tunities for children's play, has
produced a research document
which gives guidelines for play workers on how to prevent sectar
ian incidents happening on their
schemes?and how to defuse them
if they do.
PlayBoard, which has previ
ously produced advice on encour
aging equality at play between boys and girls, believes play is an ideal
medium for promotion of mutual
understanding and acceptance of
diversity?indeed many play work
ers had requested such research. As
the guidelines are very practical, this was mainly qualitative, based
on consultation with practitioners and observation on six schemes
across the region. To establish co-operative and
harmonious play environments, the
guidelines show the need not only for basic good play practice, but
also listening and communication
skills and knowledge of different world cultures. They stress that
there is work to do in all schemes,
whether single-denomination or
cross-community: intolerance
should be challenged, they say, not
just because a person from 'the
other side' is present, but because
sectarianism is wrong. Children themselves can be very
clear on this. A group of 7-11 year olds put it this way: "We want more
helping of neighbours. We do not
like cars that knock you down. We
do not like insults. We do not like
fighting with the Protestants."
PlayBoard believes that this
document is a small but innovative
step towards breaking down sec
tarianism, promoting co-operation and understanding in future gen erations and helping to sweep away
past hatreds. We owe this at least to
the children interviewed who said:
"We want a community centre that
everyone can go to."
* Play without Frontiers, availablefrom
PlayBoard NI, 136 University Street,
Belfast BT7 1HH (?2.50 members, ?3
non-members)
Brid Ruddy
Fair?
Hardly CLAUSE 30 of the 1989 Fair
Employment Act, which last month
brought the hearing of individual
complaints of religious discrimi
nation to a shuddering halt, was
intended to ensure employers would
keep information about their em
ployees' religion confidential.
It was known there would need
to be exemptions, and so the act
said this information could be given where necessary for the purposes of proceedings "under this Act ei
ther before a court or before a Tri
bunal". It had been widely assumed
this would enable an employer to
produce information about the re
ligion of employees or applicants in response to a complaint?that, since the Fair Employment Tribu
nal was established by the 1989 act,
its proceedings would be covered.
But last month the tribunal ruled
that a complaint is brought under
the 1976 Fair Employment Act?
8 NOVEMBER FORTNIGHT
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