Dermot Ahern's Criminal Justice Amendment Bill

Do you trust the police? Are you one of those people who believe that if you do no wrong, you will never find yourself on the wrong side of the law? Well, there is a tempting simplicity to such a view, but we all know by now that life isn’t temptingly simple.

Take the Birmingham Six, who had 16 years of their lives stolen from them by the police in Britain. They were convicted on the basis of concocted evidence and violently extracted confessions at the hands of the coppers, and it took British Labour Party MP, Chris Mullen, to bring attention to their case with his excellent book “Error of Judgement”, which led to a campaign that eventually saw their release.

Remember too, that high-profile cases like this are the ones we hear about. There must be countless other people in prison for crimes they did not commit - an injustice compounded by the fact that the real perpetrators of the crimes continue to walk free.

And don’t for a minute think that such miscarriages of justice are confined to other countries. The Birmingham Six were convicted under emergency legislation introduced in Britain in the wake of the murder of innocent civillians in the IRA “campaign” of the time. Moral of the story? Emergency legislation, carried on the back of understandable public revulsion, is not necessarily a good thing.

Which brings us to Dermot Ahern. This man seems prepared to stoop to subterreanean levels to distract the public from the real problems his Government have created, and has followed up his recent “Blasphemy Law” with legislation to extend the use of the Special Criminal Court to tackle gangland crime, which is the cause of much justified pubic revulsion here.

The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill passed its committee stage in the Dail (the Irish parliament) on July 7th, and will see jury trials “for gangland cases” abolished. It might be argued that any move to get around the intimidation of witnesses in cases of organised crime might be a good thing - so I’m open to persuasion on that one. However, the bill will also allow Gardai of any rank give “opinion evidence” about the existence of such a gang, which will not require corroboration.

There is a letter in today’s Irish Times, signed by 133 defence and prosection lawyers calling on the Government to withdraw the legislation. Their concern is that “opinion evidence from a garda must be understood as simply that – an opinion…… a garda on the beat – who may base it on a person’s previous convictions or from evidence upon which he/she will claim privilage and therefore not have to divulge where it came from – will be able to give and opinion which could result in conviction and sentence for a serious crime."

But maybe it all comes down to the original question: how much do you trust the police?

The Morris Tribunal found extensive corruption and criminal behaviour by gardai in Donegal, who tried to frame members of a family for murder. They also planted “evidence” on people, and hid guns and explosives which they “found” later and claimed as arms cache finds, to aid their promotion. Indeed, Morris himself reported that "The Tribunal has been staggered by the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the Garda Force.” And does anyone really think all this was a one-off, confined to Donegal? I think they would be naïve if they did.

So, if that is the case, is it really wise to allow the uncorroborated “opinion evidence” of a member of such a police force in a court of law? Could any conviction secured in this manner by considered safe?

It all comes down to how much you trust the police. And Dermot Ahern.

Back to Gombeen Nation main page