The composition of an expert review group to examine if the law needs to be changed in order to rebalance criminal justice was announced yesterday by the Tánaiste, Michael McDowell. The group will be chaired by Gerard Hogan, lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin.
In a speech delivered in Limerick nearly two weeks ago, Mr McDowell identified a number of aspects of the law that he felt needed to be looked at to establish if a rebalancing of rights between the accused and the victim was required.
Among the areas identified by the Tánaiste were the right to silence, allowing character evidence of an accused, requiring the accused to outline the nature of his defence before or at the commencement of a trial, and other matters.
Mr McDowell has now requested the review group to examine these areas and any other proposals regarding criminal law, criminal evidence and criminal procedure that may come to the attention of the group in the course of the review and report back to him by March 1st, 2007.
The review group will begin its work immediately and will seek written submissions from interested groups and from members of the public. Advertisements seeking submissions will be placed in the press.
Announcing the composition and establishment of the expert review group, the Tánaiste said that the members represented a solid blend of legal, academic and practical expertise.
"I am confident that their work will be a valuable contribution to what I described in my Limerick speech as a need to sometimes consider and review values and standards in our criminal justice system to ensure that the scales of justice remain balanced and are not tilted unfairly in one direction."
Apart from the chairman, Dr Hogan, the other members of the panel are: Professor David Gwynn Morgan, UCC; Richard Humphreys, BL; Nora Owen, chairwoman of the justice group of the Institute of European Affairs and member of the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime; Barry Donoghue, deputy director, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; Caitlín Ní Flaithearthaigh, advisory counsel, Office of the Attorney General; Tony McDermottroe and Ken O'Leary, assistant secretaries, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.