Editorial / Winter 2006

When four-fifths of the force phoned to say that they were unable to work, because of illness, they lied in public and to the public. Unintended consequences followed: at a local level, people began to share stories of bad manners in Garda stations, of emergency calls resulting in very slow responses, of inappropriate off-duty employment, etc.; on a national level, there have been investigations into Garda corruption and plans for a drastic reorganization of a force which has hitherto been self-governing. The vast majority of Irish policemen and women are splendid at what they do, but unwise industrial action and the corrupt standards of a few have damaged the image of the whole force.

Any consideration of the role of law in Irish life has to begin with the police, because that is where most citizens meet law enforcement. Declining detection rates are a worry, but so is the lawlessness of some urban areas and the feeling, amongst the poorest and the most deprived, that the law, like the State, belongs to “them”. People who are spectators in their own lives, who lack a sense of belonging, are more likely than most to be bewildered by the processes of the law, by its seeming delays, by finding themselves in situations where the richness of our legal traditions is, unintentionally, alienating.

It is a truism that hard cases make bad law, but, in our time of media overkill, our politicians can, and do, make promises which lead to new law being made on the basis of outrage at a recent event. Decisions taken in a time of clamour are rarely good. Advocacy, especially when it comes from a few highly articulate groups, is often allied to bias and subtle forms of intimidation. High emotions, like the proverbial hard cases, make bad law.

When big business is seen to be allied to the government, as was private property in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, those who are not so fortunate may wonder about the making of law to suit a powerful and influential minority rather than society as a whole. Who, for example, will benefit from a law on privacy? What is the difference between making laws and enforcing them? How do we balance local rights and what is seen as the general good? Can law-making be entrusted to the courts?

Broader injustices are being perpetrated regularly, because “value for money” has become an end in itself, so that adult literacy programmes, training of young offenders and many other helps to the most needy are reduced, by a prosperous State obsessed by market values and failing to cherish all the children of the nation at all equally.

In the summer of 1999, fourteen months after the Blue Flu, a rush to judgment resulted in one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in Irish legal history. Paul McCabe, a man of no importance whatsoever, and Nora Wall were sentenced for a rape of which they were innocent. The story of their ordeal is horrific. Equally horrific is the realization the Nora Wall might have spent years in prison and that Paul McCabe might have died there, but for the sudden collapse of the prosecution’s case in the days immediately after their conviction. Public hysteria and professional inadequacy, as shown at all levels of the investigation and prosecution of that case, could be repeated very easily in other circumstances. Whilst there is any danger of a miscarriage of justice, we cannot be complacent about our legal system.