The Gazette 1989

405 / 482

GAZETTE DECEMBER 1989
Viewpoint 383
The Company Auditor —
Principles of Civil
Liability 385
President's Column 391
SYS Autumn Seminar 393
Golf News 395
Younger Members News 401
Law relating to status of
children born outside
marriage and their
property rights 402
Executive Editor:
Mary Gaynor
Committee:
Eamonn G. Hall, Chairman
Michael V. O'Mahony, Vice-Chairman
John F. Buckley
Gary Byrne
Patrick McMahon
Charles R. M. Meredith
Daire Murphy
John Schutte
Advertising:
Seán Ó hOisín. Telephone: 305236
Fax: 307860
Printing:
Turner's Printing Co. Ltd., Longford.
The views expressed in this publication,
save where otherwise indicated, are the
views of the contributors and not
necessarily the views of the Council of
the Society.
The appearance of an advertisement in
this publication does not necessarily
indicate approval by the Society for the
product or service advertised.
Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.
Tel.: 710711 Telex: 31219. Fax: 710704
A Jft ^ F J J F INCORPORATED
I / 1 / L I I L LAW SOCIETY
M H / r I I L0FIRELAND
l ^ M M H I I Vol.83 No. 11 November
Viewpoint
In the welter of comment critical of
the British Criminal Justice system
f o l l owi ng the release of the
Guildford Four there is an underlying
assumption that " it could not
happen here". The Irish Council for
Civil Liberties have done well to
draw public attention to the fact
that not only could it but it did
happen here, in the case of the DPP
and Christopher Anthony Lynch.
This is a horrifying example of how
an innocent person could be con-
victed largely on the basis of con-
fessions made to the Gardai. There
was in fact independent evidence to
cast grave doubts on whether some
of the statements contained in the
confessions could in fact have been
correct and indeed as to whether
Mr. Lynch could have committed the
murder. It must also be said that the
position of a person suspected of a
crime who is brought to a Garda
Station for questioning has dis-
imporved, rather than improved,
since the Lynch case. Section 4 of
the Criminal Justice Act 1984 gives
the Gardai power to detain a sus-
pect for a possible maximum of 20
hours during which interrogation
can be carried out.
It has been suggested that
corroborative evidence should be
required to support confessions
made by suspects in Garda custody.
This may be taking the matter too
far because there is a wide range of
minor offences, particularly house
breaking where an admission by the
suspect is probably the only
evidence that is ever going to link
that suspect with the particular
crime. It may therefore be permiss-
ible to allow confessions to minor
offences to be sufficient grounds for
conviction in the absence of any
corroborative evidence.
Where more serious offences are
concerned there is clearly a danger
on relying on the confessions alone.
Much time is frequently spent in
major criminal trials in arguments as
to the admissibility of confessions
made in police custody and much
time spent in argument as to what
precisely took place and was said
during the interrogation.
In England and Wales a procedure
for the video recording of interro-
gations has been introduced on a
trial basis and it is argued that this
would provide irrefutable evidence
of the manner in which the interro-
gation was conducted.
In Scotland, as in many other
European countries, interrogation
of suspects in serious criminal cases
is carried out not by the police but
by an independent officer whose
function it is to carry out a formal
interrogation of the suspect all of
which is adequately recorded and
forms the basis of the decision
whether to prosecute or not. The
introduction of such a system in
Ireland might well not only give
better protection to suspects who
are innocent but also significantly
shorten the length of major criminal
trials as the evidence acquired in
the interrogation would be unassail-
able. •
383