The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill is vulnerable to constitutional challenge, according to a leading criminal lawyer.
Sean Gillane BL, chair of the Irish Criminal Bar Association, said that the provision where a person's detention could be extended by a judge sitting in secret without either the person or his or her lawyer being present had already been dismissed out of hand in a report to the Oireachtas by a committee on the Offences Against the State Act, chaired by Mr Justice Hederman. He was addressing a press conference organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties
However, introducing the Bill in the Dail, the Minister for Justice, said that the Attorney General does not believe there are any grounds for the suggestion that the Bill may be unconstitutional.
Mr Gillane said we have a successful jury system which has never had a problem bringing in verdicts of guilty. He questioned the need for the provision creating a number of new scheduled offences to be tried in the Special Criminal Court, pointing out that already the DPP could refer any particular case to that court. No new law was required to do that.
"Why is this being done?" he asked. "It is a smokescreen, an attempt to convince people that something is being done. It is a dark day in this country. We have learned hard lessons of what goes on when public bodies operate in private. This Bill is alone in the western world, where things are moving towards more openness.
"This Bill will not lead to any improvement in the lives of people in the communities affected by crime. It ignores them."
Michael Finucane, a solicitor specialising in criminal law, pointed out that a person could be held in police custody for interrogation without any access to a lawyer. A lawyer will not even be able to be present when his detention is being extended. "The person will not yet have been charged, let alone convicted," he said.
"In other countries which have faced attacks from international terrorism such laws have been found to be unconstitutional or contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
"It is a fundamental right of every person to challenge the evidence against them and to have a lawyer assist them. This [BILL]invokes images of Iron Curtain type regimes."
He said we should not descend into quick-fix solution that in the end would would result in longer and more expensive trials. "Keep trials as close to international norms as possible," he urged.
Mark Kelly, director of the ICCL, said that the organisation was committed to the fight against organised crime but did not think this was the way to go about it.
He said the organisation had made alternative proposals to tackle the issue. These included the protection of witnesses and victims by providing them with anonymity during and after the trial through the use of screens, or audiovisual recording of statements.
Delay in bringing cases to trial was a huge issue affecting both witnesses and victims, and providing criminal with opportunities for intimidation, and should be avoided, he said.
Intelligence-led policing, combined with community policing, was another way in which such crime could be combatted, and which had proved effective in other countries, he said.
He said we should learn from best practice internationally in dealing with the problem of organised crime, and formulate a robust framework of measures to combat it. He pointed out that the Council of Europe had devised a set of proposals for such a policy, to which Ireland had contributed in 2002.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International yesterday called for an extension of the Dail term by an extra week in order to debate the Bill properly. "If we are going to change the law so profoundly, we should take the time to do it properly," it said in a statement.