The Northern Ireland Education Minister has thrown a spanner in the works of the UK government’s intention to make a reservation on Article 24 (Education) when it ratifies the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The UK Minister for Disabled People, Jonathan Shaw, had stated at a meeting of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights that the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland concurred with this approach. On 27th March, however, the Northern Ireland Minister of Education, Caitríona Ruane, stated that the Convention, including Article 24, should be ratified “without reservations or interpretative declarations … It is important that children with special educational needs or disabilities can be educated together with other children and they all have access to the same range of educational opportunities.” In addition, a statement from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission declared that it was “concerned that the proposed reservation and declaration in respect of education could hinder progress towards the inclusion of disabled children in mainstream education in Northern Ireland”.

As a consequence, on 30th March CSIE wrote to Jonathan Shaw (Word, 65Kb) to ask how he proposed to respond to her recommendation. In addition, Alasdair McDonnell MP has today (1 April) tabled a parliamentary question asking Mr Shaw to (i) outline his response to the Northern Ireland Education Minister’s public statement declaring opposition to the proposed reservation on Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; (ii) to detail the impact of this opposition on previous claims that all of the devolved administrations concurred with this proposed reservation; and (iii) how, in light of this opposition in the devolved administration in Northern Ireland, he now sees the proposed reservations as necessary for England, Scotland and Wales.

There will now be a delay in the ratification process which provides a window of opportunity, and CSIE is urging all its contacts to write again to ask Jonathan Shaw to reconsider and to ratify the Convention without reservation or interpretative declaration. The possibility is now all the greater, inasmuch as the above shows how parts of the UK’s own administration are at odds with his decision.