Minister for Justice Michael McDowell yesterday called for a change of attitude among the judiciary to ensure that legislation on bail and serious drug offences is implemented, in keeping with the purpose for which it was introduced.
Mr McDowell said he was concerned about the high rates of bail being granted by the courts to people charged with serious drug and gun offences in the face of strong opposition by gardaí.
Moreover, he said he was very concerned at the high number of serious drug offences where judges were opting not to impose the mandatory 10-year minimum sentence provided for on the statute book, because defendants were pleading specific and exceptional circumstances.
Addressing the bail issue, Mr McDowell said he recognised and respected the independence of the judiciary, but the people of Ireland had gone to the polls in 1996 and voted for tighter controls on bail being granted to people accused of serious crime.
Despite this, bail was granted in a very high proportion of such cases, he said.
The expectation of people that the referendum result would translate into the withholding of bail in cases "where serious drug crimelords were asking to be set at liberty, pending trial, has, I'm afraid, been disappointed greatly in the operation of that law".
Referring to the recent revelation that some 23 of the 24 associates of Dublin drug baron, Martin Hyland were granted bail despite Garda opposition, Mr McDowell said it highlighted the fact that the bail laws are not being implemented as intended.
"The judges are independent and I don't want to get into judge-bashing . . . but the simple fact is if 23 out of 24 people are admitted to bail despite Garda opposition in very serious cases, something is going wrong," he said.
"It maybe is going wrong on our side of the fence, it may be that the judicial policy is wrong on these matters, but whatever the cause of the problem it is quite clear that the referendum in 1996 and the 1997 Bail Act [are] not effectively being operated."
Mr McDowell said there was a need for more consistency among judges on the issue as there was anecdotal evidence that some people charged with serious crime were waiting to apply for bail before certain judges because they believed that they were more likely to get bail.
"You just can't have a lottery where the applicants wait until they find a judge whom they consider is 'soft' on the issue and make their application then - you can't have that situation - we have to have a consistent application of the law," he said.
Addressing the fact that only 20 per cent of people convicted under Section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act were being sentenced to the mandatory 10-year jail term, Mr McDowell appealed to the judiciary to implement the legislation as it was intended to be implemented. He said the legislation provided for a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for such "wholesale drug dealing" and that reflected the legislature's view that it was as serious an offence as murder.
Describing such major drug dealing as "a heinous crime which is causing massive damage to the Irish way of life and Irish society," he said the legislature envisaged that the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence would be imposed in all cases, save for exceptional instances.
"In my view, it is only in exceptional and specific cases that the judiciary are mandated to deviate from a 10-year sentence . . . some misinterpretation of that section is taking place at judicial level.
"I can say that respectfully because I do respect the judiciary . . . I am appealing to them collectively because the people of Ireland are entitled to look to the judiciary to implement the law".
