CRAIG LEE FITZ: IRELAND VS GLOBALISM

WE ARE FROGS IN A POT OF WATER WITH THE HEAT SLOWLY BEING TURNED UP AND BY THE TIME THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND WAKE UP IT WILL BE TOO LATE. GARDAI TO BE GIVEN MASSIVE NEW POWERS OF SEARCH AND ARREST. RIGHT TO A SOLICITOR DURING QUESTIONING IS BEING ABOLISHED. SUPERINTENDENTS WILL TAKE OVER THE ROLE OF JUDGES SIGNING SEARCH AND ARREST WARRANTS

CIANAN BRENNAN reports in today’s Irish Examiner:

“A new policing powers bill, which could see someone jailed for five years for refusing to give gardaí their passwords for phones or computers, has been described by legal and privacy experts as “very concerning”.

The general scheme of the Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill was published on Monday and will see sweeping changes made to the system of search warrants and detention currently used by gardaí.

“It is very concerning, there are huge powers being created here,” said Dr Vicky Conway, associate professor of law at Dublin City University.

The general power of arrest without charge is being expanded massively, there is a power of detention for stop and search, and a very broad power of seizure of items upon arrest.”

“I’m surprised at this, it feels like a bit of a land grab by the Department of Justice.”

The new bill seeks to expand the powers gardaí have to access private communications in ways that had previously only been available under certain pieces of legislation. It has been described by the department as serving to “modernise existing law and make it more consistent”….

Dr Conway said the proposed bill as it stands is “exceptionally weak on safeguards”.

“There are about 20 of them which are absent. The more powers you give the gardaí the more safeguards you should have,” she said, adding that one of the “more shocking” absent safeguards is “that the presence of a lawyer at an interview is no longer guaranteed”.

“So if the gardaí don’t like how the lawyer is behaving they can get rid of him,” she said.

Dr Conway added that under the bill a breach of the law by gardaí cannot result in either civil or criminal prosecutions is “huge”, as is the fact that such a breach does not affect the admissibility of evidence.

Previously, the gardaí had to at least obey the law in assembling a case. That would no longer be the case.”

The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) will be making submissions to the Department of Justice, but said it is “concerned” about a number of facets of the prospective law.

A spokesperson said the ICCL took issue with the bill’s provisions for seizing privileged information, while the fact that search warrants could be issued by Garda superintendents, as opposed to judges, in “exceptional circumstances” is worrying, given those circumstances are not defined.

Associate professor of law at UCD TJ McIntyre described the bill as “a missed opportunity”.

“It continues the practice, which the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional, of self-service search warrants,” he said.

“In every case, that application should go through a judge, there is no reason why there can’t be a scheme to do it urgently.”

He described the bill as “quite worrying”.

“It’s taking a very invasive power which is highly controversial in other jurisdictions and extending it in a blanket way to all search warrants in an unjustified and disproportionate way,” he said.”

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40313759.html%3ftype=amp

Irish Examiner

'Very concerning': Experts worry over new powers for gardaí

New policing powers bill, which could see someone jailed for five years for refusing to give gardaí their passwords for phones or computers has been strongly criticised by legal and privacy experts

👍1

66 views15:20