CHANGING the bail laws to allow detention of people on the ground that they might commit crime could leave the State open to civil actions for damages if the person is subsequently found innocent, a senior legal academic said yesterday.
The Dean of Law at University College, Cork, Ms Caroline Fennell, said the Government had failed to say exactly what would happen if someone was detained under a changed bail law and later found innocent. "Could that person seek damages from the State? We just don't know."
Speaking at the first meeting of the Cork Right to Bail Campaign, Ms Fennell said one of the most obvious solutions to the present crime problem would be to provide extra funding for the courts system to reduce the delay in hearing cases.
Investing in more judges and more courtrooms was in everyone's interest - both that of the accused and the victims, who were often forced to endure considerable delays before cases are dealt with she said.
Ms Fennell also criticised the manner in which the debate on the referendum was being conducted by many supporters of the amendment.
"There is a dishonesty at the heart of the current debate which asks us to choose either the accused or the community interests as if they are distinct," Ms Fennell said. "They are not. Each of us has an interest in the safeguarding of fundamental rights that affect us.
"The public, the community itself, has an interest in the presumption of innocence. Quick and easy solutions involving a slip of the pen to the Constitution may yet return to haunt us," she said.
The former senator, Mr Brendan Ryan, said the debate was being conducted in the absence of any detailed empirical evidence on crime.
"There really are only two statistics that we can be sure of in this whole debate. The first is that 50 per cent of people currently remanded in custody don't get custodial sentences and the second is that the rate of suicide among remand prisoners is four times higher than that among convicted prisoners."