Brice Dickson says he could have handled things differently

A three-month protest in 2001 by loyalist residents at the Ardoyne interface in north Belfast saw pupils of Holy Cross being escorted to and from school by the security forces on a daily basis.

The dispute centred on alleged attacks on Glenbryn homes by the larger nationalist community in Ardoyne.

It ended after local Protestant residents were promised social improvements and new security measures.

Although the commission backed a legal action challenging the policing of the school protest, Mr Dickson expressed privately-held reservations about the merit of the case in correspondence with the then Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan.

Mr Dickson now says his reservations about the merits of the case were shared by three other commissioners, but he believes he could have handled things differently.

"I did what I felt was right at the time in view of the deep divisions which had surfaced within the commission," he said.

"Looking back on the matter a year and a half later, I might have dealt with those divisions differently."

Security forces escorted children to and from school

A report by the Joint Commons and Lords Committee on Human Rights said Mr Dickson's handling of the Holy Cross case raised questions about the commission's independence.

Mr Dickson stressed that those reservations in no way influenced their support for the case nor its ultimate result.

"The commission has continued to finance the case despite its limited resources for casework," he said.

"Procedures are now in place within the commission to ensure that strong differences of opinion between commissioners are more easily accommodated."

Three members of the commission have resigned in the past year.

Inez McCormack and Christine Bell, who stepped down last September, said in their resignation letters they believed the commission was ineffective in protecting and promoting human rights.

Patrick Yu, executive director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, also raised similar concerns when he resigned from the commission earlier this month.

The commission is a statutory body which was established under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Its role is to ensure that the human rights of everyone in Northern Ireland are protected in law, policy and practice.