"DISADVANTAGED people will suffer discrimination if the forthcoming bail referendum passes in its current form, according to the Bar Council's journal, The Bar Review.
The Government's proposal requiring cash or its equivalent to be lodged as part of bail will "directly discriminate against disadvantaged persons in our society", this month's edition of the journal says.
At present, persons remanded on bail do not have to pay money.
The journal expresses hopes in its editorial that November's bail referendum will be preceded by a "fully informed debate in order to facilitate a meaningful consideration of the relevant issues".
While welcoming as overdue many of the measures in the Government's recent anti crime package, some of them require "a good deal more consideration before implementation".
It describes the proposed anti crime reforms providing for the curtailment of the right to silence, the seizure of suspected assets of crime and changes to the bail laws as "the most radical single package of alterations to Irish criminal law and procedure ever put together".
But it says many of the proposals have received little or no public debate and that "shrill voices have been raised to attack those who defend accused persons".