JURIES SHOULD be more representative of society as a whole, and measures should be taken to ensure their privacy and anonymity, according to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
James Hamilton was addressing the 10th annual prosecutors’ conference at the weekend, and he said he understood that the measures being taken in the new criminal courts complex, which will open shortly in Dublin, would represent an important tool in reducing scope for the intimidation of jurors through following them and “eyeballing” them.
He said he thought the question of jury reform was of the greatest importance.
“There is much more we need to do to ensure that juries are properly representative of society as a whole. At the moment far too many categories of people are excluded from jury service, as a result of which juries are not as representative of modern Irish society as they might be.”
He welcomed the fact that the Law Reform Commission was examining this issue, and said his office had made a submission to it.
He said the economic crisis was likely to have an impact on how the office did its business, and it was likely that for some time to come it would have to attempt to maintain high standards on limited resources.
Changes in the work of the office during the past year included the start of giving reasons for decisions not to prosecute. Most of the cases so far involved fatal road incidents, and in quite a high proportion of them they were single-vehicle incidents where the only driver involved had been killed.
Another innovation was bringing into force arrangements for a child complainant to have his or her initial statement recorded on video and admitted as evidence, thus avoiding the need to give evidence in court. The office remained committed to contributing in whatever way it could to improve the experience of children and their families as they go through the long process from initial complaint to conclusion of trial and beyond.
Barrister Una Ní Raifeartaigh told the conference that there were many ways in which procedures around cases involving child sex abuse could be improved.
She said there could be delays of years in bringing such cases to trial, during which a child would change physically and psychologically. There was usually very little corroborative evidence, and it was of vital importance that there be a thorough investigation.
She stressed the importance of avoiding the twin abysses of ensuring child sex abuse did not go undetected and unpunished, and ensuring that a person was not wrongfully accused and wrongly convicted, and forced to carry that stigma. Separating the truthful from the untruthful was extraordinarily difficult.
She called for the establishment of specialist units within the Garda Síochána to deal with child sex abuse, stating that often when a child made a complaint the first available female officer was called, and she was aware of cases where an officer taking the initial statement had never been in a Circuit Criminal Court trial.
“The taking of a statement from a child is the key event,” she said. “Everything flows from that, the decision to take the prosecution, how, other relevant information.”
She said she was shocked at the inertia within the system. The legislation permitting the video-taping of evidence had been passed in 1992, yet was still not properly operational.
Dividing such cases into two jurisdictions, with all those involving penetrative sexual abuse going to the Central Criminal Court and other sex abuse cases going to the Circuit Criminal Court, was a false distinction as there could be cases in the Circuit Criminal Court that were much more complex than those in the Central Criminal Court.