HOW interesting to read that "journalists and civil liberties groups have warned the Government not to pass panic anti crime measures in the wake of Veronica Guerin's murder". Who are these people? It turns out, on closer reading, that "journalists" is one journalist, albeit an official of the National Union of Journalists, and the "civil liberties groups" is one civil liberties group, the Irish, Council for Civil Liberties.
Why does the opinion of one member of the NUJ become a news story, in which his singularity achieves a grand plurality, though the opinion of many journalists never merits a news report, never mind elevation to numerousness? But of course he was not speaking for himself; he was speaking for the National Union of Journalists - and this, apparently, converts his personal opinions to being newsworthy ones.
Why, please, is the National Union of Journalists, which receives money from me every month, advising the Government how to deal with the drugs problem and related criminality? Why is it warning that "draconian" measures - cited as seven day detention periods, the loss of right to silence and the tightening of bail regulations - could lead to wrongful convictions?
And how did the NUJ achieve clairvoyant powers? Eoin Ronayne said of the late Veronica Guerin: "She would not have supported a mad rush to change legislation." Did she confide in him and say: "In the event of my being murdered, I don't want a mad rush to change the legislation"? Did she? I think we should be told.
Bees in Bonnets
But let us pass by Eoin Ronayne's talents as a clairvoyant; I am curious about his right to speak, not as a individual - which is of course inalienable - but as a secretary of the NUJ. I am given no choice about being a member of the NUJ. The NUJ insists that to function as a journalist, I must be a member. But my patience only goes so far. The NUJ is a trade union, concerned about the conditions in the workplace, and in a broader sense about press freedom.
It is not a ginger group whose taste of the season depends on the particular bee in the particular bonnet of its secretary. I have bees in my bonnet the entire time. In the event of my ever being appointed to a post within the NUJ, although somehow unlikely I would be obliged to keep these bees, firmly within my bonnet, and not release them in the name of the NUJ. So, though I might have strong feelings about the draconian measures taken against the people of Manchester by the IRA, as an NUJ official I would stay silent about them; as indeed the NUJ in Ireland did. As it also did about the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe and virtually every paramilitary deed I can think of.
It is very simple, NUJ. I believe that the bail laws should be reformed, not because of Veronica's murder, but because I have done for a long time. I also do not believe in "the right to silence", a notion which is peculiar to anglophone legal culture, and which is quite foreign in other legal jurisdictions in the European Union which have far profounder traditions of civil liberties. And I am wholeheartedly in favour of a change in the bail laws.
Eoin Ronayne has a right to disagree with me on these matters; he has no right to speak in my name, calling for a political programme I do not approve of, wearing the hat of the NUJ to which I pay an annual subscription. If the NUJ insists on taking political stances, it cannot be surprised if its members who disagree with such stances say, To hell with the consequences: here is my resignation. That, I believe, is called fair warning.
Clairvoyant Powers?
Clairvoyance of another kind was at the disposal of Michael Farrell of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. He said, "Seven day detention, restriction of the right to silence and refusing bail would not have prevented Veronica Guerin's murder, but they will certainly lead to injustice and wrongful convictions if adopted".
I see. He knows that these I measures would not have prevented Veronica's death, does he? He knows they would lead to injustice? What a clever fellow.
Now my relationship towards, the ICCL is not that of the NUJ:
I am not obliged to be a member. Nor would I be. Ever. Any "civil liberties" group which presumes that the only offenders of civil liberties are governments is unlikely to wind my affection.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties and its companion organisation, the North's Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ), came under fierce attack during the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation last year for their selective approach to human rights abuses. "You don't do the argument for human rights any good when you pass by the human rights abuses by terrorist organisations", said the Alliance leader, John Alderdice.
Civil Liberties
Michael Farrell defended the CAJ. "It's a position taken by civil liberties groups everywhere. They focus on state agencies because they are given the power they have by democratic mandate, and they can be held accountable according to the standards they volunteer to." He pointed out that British civil liberties groups, for example, do not monitor the activities of the Kray gang.
Good. An interesting example. Was he saying that the IRA is comparable to the Kray gang? Is that why the Irish Council for Civil Liberties never responds to the vast infringements of people's liberties by the IRA? Although there is a difference, the Krays never stood for election, and never spoke about a democratic mandate", which has a strangely familiar ring to it.
But in a war between state and subversives, when a supposedly impartial body criticises only one faction, we may be confident about the nature of that impartiality. No doubt the politics of condemnation are negative; but they are not nearly as negative as the politics of selective silence.