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GAZETTE
M
I A
W
H
APRIL/MAY 1996
Drug Trafficers, Lay Members and
'Ambulance Chasers' - All Grist to the
Media Mill
In a high profile month for the
solicitors' profession in the media,
three main subjects dominated namely
(1) The Society's opposition to the
seven day detention proposals in the
Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking)
Bill, (2) the publication of Second
Report of the Lay Members of the
; Registrar's Committee and (3) a
| medical profession attack on solicitors
alleging "qmbulance chasing" and
improper advertising to promote
medical negligence claims.
1. Opposition to Seven Day
Detention
The Society's opposition in principle
to the seven day detention provisions
of the Criminal Justice (Drug
Trafficking) Bill 1996, objection on
the basis that these detention
| provisions constituted a threat to the
civil liberties of all citizens, was
widely reported in the national media.
| The terms of the Society's press
release were quoted extensively in all
national newspapers. Indeed, when the
j
Viewpoint in the March
Gazette,
I containing broadly speaking the same
j
material as the original press release,
was subsequently published, both the
Irish Times
and
Irish Independent
again reported the matter fully.
The Chairman of the Society's
Criminal Law Committee,
James
MacGuill,
was interviewed on the
Morning Ireland RTE 1
radio
programme. He emphasised that, even
though the Society was opposed in
principle to citizens being liable to
detention without charge for up to
seven days for the purposes of
interrogation, solicitors fully
understood the scourge of drug-related
crime and would support any
reasonable Government proposal to
help deal with it. "To put everything
in context, when the Minister
announced her campaign last year,
there were seventeen proposals made.
Solicitors had no difficulties with
sixteen of those proposals. We have
'VjPJr
ft
David Hanley, the grand inquisitor on
RTE Radio 7's Morning Ireland
programme,
recently interviewed on separate occasions
the Law Society's James MacGuill
and Ken Murphy.
first hand experience on a daily basis
of the harm that drug barons are
causing, both to the victims of crime
and the drug addicts who are used as
tools by the barons, so we are perhaps
more hostile than anyone to drug
barons and anxious to see that they are
put down. However, the particular
proposal for seven days detention
without charge is one which would be
generally unacceptable throughout the
world", he said.
Although the Society's position was
reported with respect in most
newspapers,
James MacGuill
was not
spared a tabloid backlash in the form
of the 'John Donlon on Monday'
column in the
Daily Star
on 18 March
1996 which contained the following.
"People are fed up with this kind of
claptrap from the Law Society. It is
time Mr. MacGuill and his ilk learned
a few home truths.
"Drug dealers are scum. They are
polluting the country with the stuff
they peddle, and they have a vested
interest in turning young people into
drug addicts.
"Most people questioned in relation to
drug pushing are guilty and if a few
innocent souls have to be held for
seven days in the relative luxury of
prison, so be it."
It is to be expected that the coverage,
both supportive and hostile, of the
Society's position on this subject will
continue as the Bill makes further
progress through the Oireachtas.
2. Report of the Lay Members of
the Registrar's Committee
The Society forwarded the second
report of the lay members of the
Registrar's Committee to the Minister
for Justice on 29 March 1996.
Although under no obligation to do
so, two weeks later the Society made
copies of the report available to the
media.
The Society chose to do this for the
same reason that it voluntarily
appointed lay members to its
Registrar's Committee in the first
place. It believes in transparency and
has absolutely nothing to hide in
relation to its complaints handling
procedure which can only have public
confidence in it strengthened when
independent lay members favourably
report, as they did this year, that the
Society operates "a fair and
transparent complaints procedure".
The lay members also noted progress
during the past year reflecting "the
commitment of the Law Society to
pursue complaints in a fair and
balanced way and to develop and
implement improvements in the
procedures to achieve that".
An overwhelmingly positive lay
members' report such as this one does
not make very exciting news and so it
was inevitable that the reporting
would tend to focus on the few and
101