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Irish Council for Civil Liberties

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Irish Council for Civil Liberties
Formation30 June 1976; 48 years ago (1976-06-30)
Founder
TypeNGO
HeadquartersDublin, Ireland
Chairperson
Colette Kelleher[1]
Executive director
Joe O'Brien[1]
Websitewww.iccl.ie

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (Irish: An Chomhairle um Chearta Daonna)[2] is an Irish non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the civil liberties and human rights of people in Ireland.

History

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Founded on 30 June 1976 by future President Mary Robinson, Kader Asmal and others,[3] the organisation's primary role is in campaigning for civil rights. It also networks with other civil rights groups nationally and internationally.

During the divorce campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, the ICCL was among others who established the Divorce Action Group which campaigned to support the legalisation of divorce which had previously been prohibited in the Constitution. In 1995, this was successfully passed by referendum.

The ICCL are a member organisation of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH).

The ICCL has repeatedly sought the abolition of the Special Criminal Court, and in 2009 opposed its expansion from a narrow focus on state security-related trials to also include organised crime.[4]

In October 2011, the ICCL said the information provided to voters in advance of polling in two constitutional referendums on the Twenty-ninth Amendment and Thirtieth Amendment was "tardy and inadequate".[5] and advocated a 'no' vote on the proposed Thirtieth Amendment.[6] The Thirtieth Amendment was subsequently rejected by more than 100,000 votes.[7]

In January 2020, the ICCL criticised management at CBS Kilkenny for attempting to implement facial recognition technology to record and process the biometric data of children and staff in the school. The implementation was postponed as a result.[8]

Freedom of speech

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In 2023, the ICCL expressed support for the curbing of hate speech in Ireland, but called for definitions of "hate" and "incitement", to that legislation would be focused on "only the most extreme forms of hate speech", so as not to place undue limitations on freedom of expression. The ICCL also called for the freedom of expression defence in the legislation to be strengthened, referring to the precedence set by European courts which stresses that while content may be shocking or offensive, it may not be "hateful".[9]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "About - Irish Council for Civil Liberties". iccl.ie. Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
  2. ^ "World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Ireland". Minority Rights Group International. June 2008. Retrieved 29 April 2025 – via archive.unhcr.org.
  3. ^ "Celebrating 45 years of change". iccl.ie. Irish Council for Civil Liberties. 17 December 2021. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  4. ^ MacGuill, Dan (10 February 2016). "FactCheck: Who wants to get rid of the Special Criminal Court?". thejournal.ie. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  5. ^ Edwards, Elaine (27 October 2011). "Referendum information 'inadequate' - ICCL". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012.
  6. ^ "Legal groups join call for no vote in referendum". Irish Examiner. 21 October 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
  7. ^ "Oireachtas inquiries referendum rejected". rte.ie. 30 August 2011. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
  8. ^ "School puts plans for facial recognition pilot on hold over GDPR". Business Post. Archived from the original on 19 January 2020. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  9. ^ Duffy, Muireann (28 May 2023). "State cannot over-rely on legislation to tackle hate speech — ICCL". BreakingNews.ie. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
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