Judging the Guards - Village Magazine

3 6 Nov/Dec 2016

UIS CUSTODIET CUSTODIES? Pompous and

all as it sounds, in my view, it’s the funda-

mental question for Ireland. Who watches

over those who safeguard our democracy and

our rights - our 'guards'?

Our democracy and our society is dysfunc

tional: those entrusted with the power to discharge

positions responsibly are not ﬁt to. If only because they

are supposed to be standard-setters, the most egregious

failures are in the area of justice – the Garda and the Judi-

ciary, and the related government department, of

Justice.

The Gards

Why has it not been fully digested that for over 30 years

the police were tapping telephone conversations

between client and solicitors, particularly in police

stations?It is now suspected that at

least 2,800 non-999 calls were mon-

itored, in 23 Garda stations from

1980 to 2013. It's legal to record con-

versations that include yourself, but

not those that do not.

The government ordered an

inquiry into the abuses but the Fen-

nelly Commission, which is due to

report shortly, said it is beyond its

power to carry out a full search of 13

years’ of recordings that are on tapes

and that it will look at samples only.

I cannot accept that Ministers for Justice Shatter,

McDowell, Lenihan, Ahern, O’Donoghue – and their

bureaucrat minions– did not know of this.

A former detective sergeant brought forward com-

plaints about the practice but after pursuing internal

mechanisms he claims he was “isolated, bullied and

harassed” after doing so, and took action against the

State.

Let us be absolutely clear. Justice ofﬁcials and govern-

ment ministers have been criminals. Or if they have not

been, they have some pretty dynamic explaining to do.

From Morris to Smithwick to Fennelly to O’Neill, the

joke is that the only Judge not to have been asked to look

into Garda delinquency is the one from Wanderley

Wagon.

The fundamental problem with the police is that they

do not know what they are doing. On a very basic level

they do not know what it is to conduct an investigation.

In Templemore, where I have lectured, they are trained

largely not to investigate but to assume guilt. In this pro-

cess they think singularly and exclusively about getting

a result, oblivious to any lives they are damaging. They

will often then distort, embellish and manufacture what

they deem to be evidence. I do not want to blame them

exclusively: in this respect, they are merely a product of

our non-educational results-focused system.

In my view the police are a ﬁfth column, a dangerous,

certainly subversive force in our democracy. The great

Adrian Hardiman made an entirely similar point in the JC

case, detailing the critical ﬁndings of tribunals of inquiry

into Garda conduct and recalling recent “deeply disturb-

ing developments” in relation to the force and its

oversight.. “If the ordinary citizen were provided with a

defence of ‘I didn’t mean it’ or ‘I didn’t know it was

against the law’, then many parts of the law would

become completely unenforceable".

Between May 2007 and November 2009, 111 com-

plaints about alleged Garda violence and intimidation

were submitted to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman

Commission – established in 2005 and invested with

more public hope than legislative power – by campaign-

ers opposing Shell’s Corrib Gas Project in Kilcommon

Parish in north west Mayo. A 2007 human-rights hearing

Judging

the Guards

Judges and the Garda let our society

down: make the Garda Commissioner

accountable to the Ombudsman, and

establish a Judicial Commission.

by David Langwallner

POLITICS

I cannot accept that

Ministers for Justice Shatter,

McDowell, Lenihan, Ahern,

O’Donoghue– and their

bureaucrat minions – did

not know of the taping by

Garda of solicitor-client calls

'Who Watches the Watchmen?'