NEW LEGISLATION on gangland crime will be announced by Government today, according to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
Following a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Ahern said he had discussed the legislation with the Taoiseach and the details would be announced this afternoon.
The measures will include new offences of directing or controlling a criminal gang. They will also include extending powers used to combat subversive organisations to deal with criminal gangs, including the use of the Special Criminal Court.
It is understood directing or controlling a criminal gang would carry a maximum life sentence, while membership of such a gang would have a 15-year maximum sentence. The offence would be a scheduled one, meaning those charged would automatically appear before the Special Criminal Court unless the DPP directed otherwise.
But the Minister ruled out the use of internment, saying the public had no appetite for it.
He said the Cabinet had authorised the drafting of additional amendments to the Criminal Justice Amendment Act 2009 to allow for the new measures.
The measures relating to the Special Criminal Court should not be taken lightly by any democracy, he said, but he believed all the new measures were legally sound.
“In effect we are saying . . . it’s not possible to bring some of these cases into ordinary courts because of the potential and the fact of intimidation of witnesses and jurors,” he said.
Asked if there were difficulties in relation to the use of Special Criminal Courts he said there were legal issues. “Obviously when the Bill comes forward a decision will have to be made at that stage in relation to whether you can schedule offences under the legislation to include them in to the Special Criminal Court,” he said.
He also said the issue of using opinion evidence was being examined, though the Attorney General had advised its use was fraught with difficulty.
He said though the situation was difficult in some areas of this country, internment was not needed and people did not have an appetite for it.
“While the gut reaction [to gangland crime] is ‘lock them all up and pick them off the streets’, the reality is when their son or their daughter is picked off the street the first thing they will do is go into the court and claim their human rights have been abused,” he said. The Minister said he hoped the legislation would be passed before the summer recess.
