MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern is to face significant pressure this week to changes to his gangland criminal legislation.
Fine Gael has urged that he abandon powers to let gardaí of any rank give evidence that someone is a member of a criminal gang. Instead, Fine Gael insists this power should be reserved for Garda officers of chief superintendent rank and above.
Such evidence should not be enough on its own to guarantee conviction, and the State should also have some “positive evidence” such as surveillance transcripts.
Debate on the legislation will finish in the Dáil by the end of the week, before going to the Seanad next week.
Fine Gael says secret hearings in gangland cases to extend detention for up to seven days should be presided over by a Circuit Court judge rather than a District Court colleague. It also wants a stenographer’s record to be kept of such private hearings to be used in any subsequent appeals, which Fine Gael believes are a certainty.
The Department of Justice last night said it would publish 20 amendments to its own legislation, although all bar one are technical corrections. Despite concerns, the Green Party has not produced amendments to the legislation, although the issue was discussed during a meeting of its TDs and Ministers in a hotel in Dublin.
Labour TD Pat Rabbitte urged Mr Ahern to postpone the legislation’s passage until September so the Dáil’s Justice Committee could hear expert evidence over the summer.
“We do not oppose the principle of any measure designed to combat organised crime. But we do oppose sections of this Bill as published which give the misleading impression of effectively tackling organised crime by creating a number of additional scheduled offences triable automatically in the Special Criminal Court. The DPP already has discretion, where the circumstances warrant it, to refer a particular case to the Special Criminal Court.”
He proposed that clauses making organised crime offences triable automatically in the Special Criminal Court be deleted, and instead that the DPP’s right to send particular cases to the no-jury court should be preserved.
“It would require him first to be satisfied, on reasonable and objective grounds, that there is a risk of jury intimidation in the case.
“It would require any court hearing a challenge to the basis of his opinion to take all necessary steps to preserve confidential information.
“Finally, it would say that the DPP’s opinion does not have to be one sufficient to satisfy a court beyond reasonable doubt or even on the balance of probabilities; but he does have to be satisfied that there is a ‘real and substantial’ risk.”
Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins called on Fine Gael and Labour to support the legislation, citing public support for the Bill.
“The public fully supports this new proposed legislation. Over the last number of months I have met with and spoken to many people who fully support this; not one person has expressed a view to me that this legislation should not be enacted.”
