Madam, - Minister for Justice Michael McDowell's bombastic speech on the reforms he suggests are necessary to "rebalance criminal justice" in favour of the victim would be more persuasive if he had not just steered the new 200-section Criminal Justice Act through the Oireachtas (The Irish Times, October 21st).
If these reforms are really this important, it is strange that they were not included within the Act. In reality, placing further encroachments on the basic due process rights of accused persons will not provide any necessary support to the victims of crime. The right to silence, the exclusionary rule and the rule against introducing evidence of prior convictions are long-standing principles fundamental to the fairness of our criminal justice system.
If the Minister is serious about victims' rights, there are other ways to secure those. For example, he could have introduced a proper reform of the law on sex offences, which might have limited the fallout from the CC case earlier this year. The suspicion must be that this "rebalancing" act is just political grandstanding in advance of the next general election. - Yours, etc,
IVANA BACIK, Law School, Trinity College, Dublin 2.