The Dáil will discuss the Criminal Justice Bill again today. The decision to allow further consideration was taken by the Minister for Justice following widespread unease about the short time given to it last week at committee stage.
While any additional discussion of this major legislative proposal is welcome, the Government is determined to rush it through the Oireachtas before the election. The case for doing so has not been made.
The Bill is 57 pages long and contains hundreds of individual amendments to different pieces of previous legislation. It is not possible for the Dáil to examine adequately all these proposals in a few short hours. As the Law Society pointed out last week, this is the type of law-making which, under pressure, produces errors such as the Dáil's inadvertent repeal last May of the offence of soliciting for underage sex.
This Bill has attracted more widespread criticism from the legal community than any criminal justice initiative in recent years, with the Law Society and 140 barristers seeking its deferral until after the election. The Human Rights Commission (HRC), which has a statutory function to comment on the human rights dimensions of new legislation, issued 20 pages of observations on the Bill last Thursday. It described as "unfortunate" the limited time-frame provided for discussion, and went on to raise doubts about the constitutionality of a number of its provisions, notably the restrictions on judicial discretion and the proposals to introduce electronic tagging for people awaiting trial.
The HRC also expressed serious concern about the compatibility of various sections of the Bill with international human rights conventions to which Ireland is a party. It pointed out that the new limitations on the right to silence differ crucially from similar measures in the United Kingdom in that the accused person is not guaranteed the presence of a solicitor during interrogation. And many of the new measures are being proposed without evidence of their likely effectiveness in fighting crime.
The main Opposition parties are going along with the rush to introduce this legislation before the end of the present Dáil. Wrong-footed by a fear of being labelled soft on crime in the run-up to an election, they are failing to take their duty as legislators seriously and subject this Bill to the scrutiny it deserves. But it is not too late for the Opposition - and for all legislators who take their constitutional responsibilities seriously - to insist that this Bill is delayed until it can receive proper debate. The fight against crime can only benefit from giving such far-reaching legislation the fullest debate.