Cherie Blair departed for the UK last night after a five night stay in Bermuda.

This was the third visit to Bermuda for the wife of the UK Prime Minister. The principal reason for her trip was to address the Bermuda Bar Association at their annual dinner last Sunday, but she also enjoyed some sightseeing on the Island with her mother and sons Nicholas and Leo.

On Sunday evening, Mrs. Blair said that she was delighted to be back and to be meeting fellow lawyers of the Bar Council of the Bermudian Bar Association.

In her speech on human rights issues, Mrs. Blair said that Bermuda and Britain shared a commitment to Democracy, the Rule of Law and Human Rights.

She examined what was expected of states in the Commonwealth that claimed to be democratic and concluded that an important component of democracy was the right of an individual "to take part in public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives". This component, she said, was bolstered by the right to vote and the right to freedom of expression. But she added that universal suffrage did not put an end to inequalities: "A true vision of democracy is one which commits the nation, after the free and fair elections are over, to the value of inclusion and the toleration of difference."

Mrs. Blair warned that democracy could not flourish without a commitment to the rule of law and emphasised the need for an independent judiciary.

"If an example were needed, the recent events in Zimbabwe alone are evidence of how, without a healthy respect for the rule of law, citizens' human rights are put in doubt."

Mrs. Blair said a significant recent development in human rights had been the extent to which national judges are holding states to their international human rights promises. She gave three examples where judges had ruled against decisions by ministers of immigration on the grounds that the government had contravened fundamental human rights principles.