The climate of hostility towards immigrants is making the word "refugee" a term of abuse, writes Nuala Haughey
Five men walked into a shop in Co Wicklow last November. The owner began to suspect from their behaviour that they intended to steal something. One of the men called for his assistance in a particular section of the shop, a move which the owner believed was part of an effort to distract him while the others could break into the shop's office.
In the event the men didn't steal anything. They bought items including chewing gum, Coke and crisps before departing. However, the gardaí were telephoned and the men were subsequently arrested, charged and convicted.
They were sentenced in Rathdrum Court to between four and six months for the crime of intending to commit an offence. They appeared in court on the same day last month as the Co Cork TV chef, Tim Allen, who received a non-custodial sentence after admitting to possessing child pornography. The men are currently on bail, pending an appeal in their case, due on March 4th.
They were convicted under section 11 (2) (b) of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994, which states that it shall be an offence for a person "to be within the vicinity of any such building or curtilage . . . for the purpose of trespassing thereon, in circumstances giving rise to the reasonable inference that such entry or presence was with intent to commit an offence or with intent to unlawfully interfere with any property situate therein".
The offence carries, on summary conviction, the sanction of a fine not exceeding £1,000 (€1,270) or up to six months imprisonment or both. There were 592 offences in which proceedings were taken under this provision in 2001 and 381 convictions, according to the Garda press office.
At last month's court hearing, the solicitor for the men, Mr Gus Cullen, drew comparisons between section 11 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 and section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1980.
In that case, Mr Neville Francis King had been convicted under section 4 for "as a suspected person" being found loitering with intent to commit a felony, "to wit, housebreak and steal". Mr King was also accused of having in his possession house-breaking implements, including two screwdrivers, a tyre lever, hacksaw, haversack, lifting spanner and candle.
On appeal, the Supreme Court found that section 4 infringed the principle of equality before the law under Article 40 of the Constitution because it applied only to every "suspected person or reputed thief".
Of course, the current provision of the Criminal Justice Act is applicable not to "a suspected person" but to any person, provided there are circumstances giving rise to a reasonable inference that they intended to commit a crime.
There is one other detail about the current case: the men were a group of Roma, all from Romania. To point out that the Roma are recognised as one of the most stigmatised and marginalised ethnic minority groups in Europe is not to condone crimes by them.
WHILE not challenging the conclusion arrived at by the judge on the facts of this particular case, surely it is reasonable to be concerned that a charge which, in ordinary language, amounts to acting shiftily while looking a bit dodgy, might well be applied disproportionately against identifiably marginalised groups such as the Roma, Travellers or even, to use that most genteel of euphemisms, "inner-city Dublin youths".
In Ireland, we have equality legislation to give such people the chance to challenge the daily indignities and discriminations they face.
The manifest need for such legislation is regularly shown in the cases upheld by equality officers, including one last week in which a woman was refused admission to a nightclub in Cork where she had been a regular after door staff discovered she was a Traveller.
If five well-dressed men entered a shop with the intention of committing a crime which they did not subsequently commit, would their acceptable accents be sufficient to mask any "reasonable" suspicions about their criminal intent? Could shop-keepers, publicans or nightclub owners abuse this provision to keep out undesirable customers while staying on the right side of equality legislation?
We are living in a European Union where the climate of hostility towards immigrants generally has made the word "refugee" a term of abuse rather than a factual description of someone granted protection from persecution.
People are daily labelled and stigmatised on the basis of what they are and where they come from; this is not new. But are people, like members of the Roma community or other immigrants, now destined to join the list of "suspected" persons of 21st-century Ireland?