Cuffe criticises Bill to hold gang trials in non-jury court

GOVERNMENT backbencher Ciarán Cuffe has sharply criticised criminal justice legislation which allows for the use of the non-jury, three-judge Special Criminal Court to deal with criminal gangs.

The Dún Laoghaire Green Party TD said it would “have far-reaching implications” for the administration of justice.

He stressed the constitutional provision for “a right for criminal trial by jury save in circumstances where the ordinary courts are deemed inadequate and ineffective”. Publicly at least “a clear demonstration that the ordinary courts are inadequate for trying gangland criminals appears to be absent”.

Mr Cuffe will however vote with the Government next Tuesday on the legislation and Lucinda Creighton (FG, Dublin South-East) accused him of speaking out of both sides of his mouth by supporting and at the same time criticising the Government.

She described him as “utterly disingenuous”. Mr Cuffe retorted “I do not subscribe to the uno duce, una voce approach to government”.

The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill was introduced by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, who said that while it was a “big step” to use the Special Criminal Court “a failure to take that decision would be to shirk our overriding responsibility to ensure that the rule of law prevails”.

He said the “threat to witnesses is already clearly accepted”. Criminal gangs were prepared to go further than intimidation and until the murder in Limerick of Roy Collins, whose father Steve Collins had given evidence in a criminal trial, “I had resisted calls for sterner legislation, but I cannot stand by and let our criminal justice system be undermined”.

Mr Ahern insisted that “as criminal organisations and their methods evolve so should our response”. The Minister said the measures were not taken lightly “but we must bring every available legal instrument to the fight against organised crime”.

Referring to claims that the Bill could be unconstitutional, he stated: “All I can say is that the senior legal adviser to the Government does not believe there are any grounds for that suggestion.”

All concerns of the Human Rights Commission had been considered, he said. “Indeed some of their suggestions might actually prejudice the right to a fair trial.”

Deputy Cuffe criticised the rush to deal with the legislation in two days and said this speed did “the House no service”. He was concerned that the Special Criminal Court “will not necessarily solve this problem of trying gangland criminals”.

He distinguished between the “intimidation of witnesses, which is the spark of the legislation and the intimidation of juries. The Special Criminal Court is not the solution to witness intimidation as witnesses will still have to give evidence in a criminal trial.”

There were alternate measures to avoid jury tampering or intimidation, “including anonymous juries, video-link communication and restricting the jury from public view”. Mr Cuffe pointed out that in the UK the prosecution “must bring forth evidence of real and present danger of jury tampering to secure a non-jury trial”.

But Mr Ahern said “sequestering jurors, using jurors outside the community from which the defendant comes, shielding jurors from sight of the open court or providing round the clock protection for jurors are not viable and will not guarantee freedom from intimidation. These gangs have sophisticated networks capable of identifying those they perceive as thwarting their activities.”

Referring to the provision for Garda evidence in the Bill, he said it related to “the expert evidence of a garda who would know about the existence of a criminal organisation”.