The Gazette 1990

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GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 1990
Schizophrenia and
the Law 273
Lawbrief 278
People & Places 284
James J. Ivers, Director
General 1973-1990
— In Retrospect 287
Association of Pension
Book Reviews 293
*
E x e c u t i ve E d i t o r:
Mary Gaynor
C o m m i t t e e:
Eamonn G. Hall, Chairman
Michael V. O'Mahony, Vice-Chairman
John F. Buckley
Gary Byrne
Patrick McMahon
Daire Murphy
John Schutte
A d v e r t i s i n g:
Seán Ó hOisín. Telephone: 305236
Fax: 307860
P r i n t i n g:
Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford.
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save where otherwise indicated, are the
views of the contributors and not
necessarily the views of the Council of
the Society.
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indicate approval by the Society for the
product or service advertised.
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A A " f P T T r I NCOR PORA T ED
I / 1 / L I | L L A W SOC I E T Y
M H / r I I r
l ^ H ^ H I I Vol. 84 No. 8 October 1
Viewpoint
As part of his address to the Half
Yearly Meeting of the LawSociety,
published in our June issue*, the
Director of Public Prosecutions,
Eamonn Barnes, in a character-
istically thought-provoking manner,
raised the question of whether our
system for the investigation of
criminal offences was not in need
of radical review. He debated two
possible changes - the providing
of some form of judicial inquisitorial
system along the lines of that
existing in civil law countries and
whether the absolute right to
silence of a suspected person
should continue. In a very stark
way, Mr. Barnes stated that the
"most basic rights, to walk the
streets, to park a car, to the in-
violability of one's own home are
regularly and brutally invaded and
can no longer be taken for granted
as they were a few short years
ago", and he correctly commented
that " . . . . as a society we have
become almost resigned to this
state of affairs."
Nobody can deny that there is a
serious cause for concern about
the level of crime - the shuttered
faces of Dublin's shopping streets
at night are silent evidence of this.
However, whether a radical change
in our criminal legal process could
offer a panacea for this is open to
question.
*"Does the Irish Criminal Justice
System Work" by Eamonn M.
Barnes, Director of Public Prosecu-
tions, Gazette, June 1990,
pp.161/165.
No criminal justice systemwhich
has imprisonment as one of its
principal sanctions can function
effectively if the prison accommo-
dation is totally inadequate for the
numbers required to be incarcera
ted. The practice of releasing from
prison prisoners with substantial
amounts of their sentences still to
run, inorder to accommodate those
newly sentenced, negates the im-
prisonment option. If prison is to
have a rehabilitative function as
well as a punitive one, then
education and other programmes
aimed at giving prisoners the
opportunity to avoid crime in the
future must be given time towork.
For those prisoners whose reci-
divism cannot be cured, it is im-
portant for the credibility of the
system that they remain in prison
for the appropriate period of their
sentence.
It is courageous of Mr. Barnes to
debate the issue of diminishing a
suspected person's right to pre-
serve silence under interrogation at
a time of controversy concerning
the Guildford Four, Maguire Seven
and Birmingham Six cases. We, in
this country, are not immune from
cases involving questionable con-
fessions. In one well publicised
case in recent years (DPP -v-
Lynch), fortunately ultimately
remedied by the Supreme Court, a
person had been convicted of
murder on the basis of aconfession
which more efficient police investi-
gation would have identified as
being untenable.
However, the adoption of the in-
quisitorial system such as operates
(Contd. on p. 275)
271