The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has criticised measures to tackle gangland crime contained the new Criminal Justice Bill, claiming it “completely ignored” the problem of witness intimidation and failed to protect the rights of victims.
The rights watchdog said the legislation would lead to secret detention hearings, special courts and unlawful detention on the word of a single low-ranking member of the gardaí.
Speaking in Limerick today, the council’s director, Mark Kelly, said: “This is a bogus Bill, which makes no attempt to tackle the serious problem of the intimidation of witnesses or to improve the lives of victims of violent crime.”
Mr Kelly said the measures violated the trust that victims of crime and their families had put in the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, and who had promised “effective action”.
“If the Minister has any intention of keeping his promise to victims of crime, he should invest in intelligence-led and community-based policing, and abandon his scheme to rush this shoddy law through the Dáil,” he said.
The legislation gives extra powers to the DPP to send gangland cases to the non-jury Special Criminal Court and creates extra offences to curb gangs. Debate on the bill will finish in the Dáil by the end of the week, before going to the Seanad next week.
Opposition parties have criticised the Minister’s attempt to fast-track the legislation through the Houses of the Oireachtas, claiming not enough time has been set aside the debate the issues.
Fine Gael has urged that Mr Ahern to abandon powers to let gardaí of any rank give evidence that someone is a member of a criminal gang.
Instead, Fine Gael insists this power should be reserved for Garda officers of chief superintendent rank and above.
Fine Gael says secret hearings in gangland cases to extend detention for up to seven days should be presided over by a Circuit Court judge rather than a District Court colleague. It also wants a stenographer’s record to be kept of such private hearings to be used in any subsequent appeals, which Fine Gael believes are a certainty.
Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte TD has put down an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would enable the CAB to apply to forfeit seized property after two years rather than the present seven-year wait.
“This will assist the CAB fight against organised crime and will have the incidental effect of an income bonanza for the Exchequer. I am advised that it could mean a once-off cash income to the Exchequer of up to €50m," he said.