‘Opaque’ laws on policing highlighted

Legislation governing Garda powers is so opaque that it hampers effective oversight of policing, a barrister from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions

has said.

Speaking at the launch of Garda Powers: Law and Practice, its author Rebecca Coen said the legislation is "very difficult to decipher", and "often incredibly complicated and unworkable" when it should be "simple, accessible, of practical utility to investigators, protective of rights and capable of comprehension by the ordinary citizen".

It is often argued that a new power is “essential if gardaí are not to fight crime with one hand tied behind their backs,” Ms Coen said.

“But quite frequently those heralding the enactment of yet another complicated piece of legislation ignore the impact of under-resourcing, which is a much more significant policing obstacle.”

Ms Coen described the overlapping garda powers in legislation as “unwieldy”. She said her book contained three chapters devoted to arrests in various contexts, and there were over 300 different pieces of legislation providing for powers to issue search warrants.

“The practice of continuing amendment section by section, by deletion and substitution, complicates rather than clarifies. and that has a number of consequences,” she said.

These include that citizens cannot have any degree of certainty as to the law and as to their rights in interacting with the Garda.

“From the perspective of gardaí it makes training difficult, it provides more scope for errors and complicates matters such as detention periods and search procedures, which ought to be straightforward. Perhaps most importantly, it makes the law so opaque as to hamper effective oversight of policing.”

The book, published by Clarus Press, was launched recently at the Criminal Courts of Justice by Director of Public Prosecutions Claire Loftus, who also wrote its foreword.

Increasing powers In her foreword, Ms Loftus said gardaí had wide-ranging powers including powers of detention for questioning, and increasing powers for the collection of evidence and covert policing, including surveillance.

“The expansion of these powers has not been matched by a streamlining or simplification of their application,” she said. “The current fragmented state of the law constitutes a daily challenge to investigators.”

Speaking at the launch, Ms Loftus described the book as impressive and wide-ranging and a cogent drawing-together of what could be “an extremely fragmented body of legislation and case law which for gardaí and lawyers is extremely difficult to navigate.”

Also at the launch, the book’s consultant editor, barrister Paul Anthony McDermott, thanked the marketing team at Clarus for arranging “a small controversy involving the Garda, the Minister for Justice and GSOC”, so that when the book was launched “there would be a fantastic backdrop” and “everybody would want to go out and buy it”.