An influential Church of Ireland publication has come out strongly against a proposed bill of rights for Northern Ireland.
An editorial in the current issue of the church's weekly Gazette says: "The proposal to have a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights should be dropped and no more public money should be spent on the project."
The "real motivation" behind such a bill was "a political agenda", it says.
"It is obvious that there are those in the Stormont establishment who want a bill of rights for Northern Ireland, as opposed to the UK as a whole, because they want Northern Ireland to relate more closely to the Republic of Ireland than to the rest of the UK.
"That is an undemocratic and, therefore, unacceptable agenda."
It claims "that the arguments that have generally been advanced in favour of a Northern Ireland bill of rights are weak and rely largely on special pleading."
It continues: "There is an astounding lack of clarity as to precisely why, from a legal perspective, a bill of rights is needed in Northern Ireland and why any new rights that are deemed necessary cannot be enacted without radical recourse to a Bill of Rights.
"A bill of rights is such a foundational document that, if there has to be one, it should refer to the entire UK; it would be inconsistent for there to be different fundamental rights in different parts of the one country. For many reasons, a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights is plainly and simply wrong."
Meanwhile in the same issue of the Church of Ireland Gazette, the Rev Dr Samuel Hutchinson, the representative of the Irish Council of Churches (which includes the Church of Ireland) on the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum, defended the proposed bill of rights.
A former clerk and moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr Hutchinson said such a bill would be "a cornerstone of the new Northern Ireland".
He noted that the Bill was promised as part of the 1998 Belfast Agreement and said "such an important promise should obviously be kept".
