Human Rights in Ireland

Abstracts of papers are now being accepted for the 7th Irish Criminology Conference 2011, which will take place 21-22nd June 2011 at the School of Humanities, IT Sligo. The conference website is here and the Facebook page is here.

 An impressive list of  high profile speakers has been confirmed, including Prof Charl Cilliers, Professor of Penology at the University of South Africa, Dr Elaine Cawley (University of Salford, author of Doing Prison Work), Dr Ciaran McCullagh, UCC (author of Crime in Ireland), Dr Azrini Wahidin (QUB), (author of Older Women in the Criminal Justice System) and Dr Christina Quinlan, DUC (Ireland’s Women’s Prisons).

Of particular interest to postgrad researchers is the Postgraduate Research Symposium on 21 June which will include a seminar on Research Metholodogies for Social Sciences and Justice Studies.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 April 2011. Abstracts should be sent to conference organisers Liam Leonard leonard.liam@itsligo.ie or Paula Kenny kenny.paula@itsligo.ie.

There is no registration fee for this conference.

Last month the Supreme Court delivered judgment in  AP v DPP [2011] IESC 2, which concerned an appeal against the High Court’s refusal to grant an order prohibiting a fourth trial of the applicant. The case is important for its discussion of the practical hurdles faced by the Superior Courts in applications for judicial review seeking an order of prohibition. This post briefly outlines the facts and the decision and highlights the useful guidance provided for lawyers acting on behalf of applicants and respondents in criminal prohibition cases. Read Full Post »

Earlier this month Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern confirmed that his Department was considering proposals to amend the law on prostitution to criminalise the buyer of sexual services. In response to a Parliamentary Question, Mr Ahern stated that he has asked the Attorney General to examine a report compiled by Department officials and members of the Dignity Project on a recent trip to Sweden, and requested his views on the legal and constitutional implications of such a move. The Report is unlikely to see the light of day before the next government is installed, however it should be published by the next Minister for Justice as a matter of urgency. The proposals present Irish policy makers with the opportunity to re-evaluate the current legal construction of prostitution. This post briefly sets out the current Irish legal landscape and examines the Swedish law on which these proposals are supposed to be based. Finally, some thoughts are offered on the operation of the harm principle in the regulation of prostitution. Read Full Post »

As many readers may already be aware, former senior IRA figure Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane has won his case against Ireland for what he claimed was undue delay in the prosecution of criminal charges against him. In a majority decision delivered earlier this month McFarlane was awarded over 15,00 in costs and damages by the European Court of Human Rights (4 judges, including Irish judge Ann Power dissented).  A webcast of the hearing is available on the Court’s website. For a summary of the factual background see here and here. This post sets out the key arguments, the reasons for the Court’s decision and offers some comments.

McFarlane was accused of kidnapping a supermarket executive after going on the run following the Maze prison escape in 1983. He was arrested in 1998 having been released from a prison sentence in the North for his role in an IRA bombing.  The case against him in the Special Criminal Court collapsed due to lack of evidence in 2008. Read Full Post »

 The Irish Centre for Human Rights together with the Office of the European Parliament in Ireland are holding an event to mark the 2010 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.

Time: Thursday 7 October, 6:00pm

Venue: NUIG campus, Theatre IT250 (1st Floor IT Building)

Since 1988, in the spirit of Andrei Sakharov, the European Parliament has awarded the annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in order to honour individuals or organisations for their efforts on behalf of human rights and fundamental freedoms and against oppression and injustice. There are nine nominees for the prize this year.As part of the event, each nominee will be represented by students from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, who will give a short presentation and argue the case for the award to be given to this nominee. Following the presentations the floor will be opened for debate, after which the audience will take part in a vote to choose who they believe should receive the award. Representatives of the European Parliament will convey the result back to the Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-Committee, where the next stage of deliberations is due to take place.

A reception will follow the event.

For information on the event, please contact Dr Noam Lubell at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Tel: +353.91.492065, noam.lubell@nuigalway.ie

For information on the Prize and on the Nominees see here

Troy Davis is a man on death row in the state of Georgia in the United States who has come to represent all that is wrong with capital punishment. Davis has endured three execution dates despite the fact that most of the prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony since he was convicted in 1991. His case throws into sharp relief the problems with capital punishment, but also on a broader level, raises fundamental questions common to all criminal justice systems about miscarriages of justice and judicial responsibility. In March of this year, Davis’ sister Martina Correia received the Sean McBride Award for Outstanding Contribution to Human Rights from Amnesty International’s Irish section.

This post sets out the history of the Davis case and briefly discusses the latest ruling on August 24th by a federal judge, in which his appeal (a petition for a writ of habeas corpus) was once again rejected. Read Full Post »

University College Cork has announced that a new MA in Criminology will start this September. The press release published on UCC’s website states as follows:

The object of this programme is to familiarise students with the main theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of crime as a social phenomenon and as an object of social policy, and to give students the competencies to carry out relevant research in the area.

It will be in two parts. In Part 1 (45 credits) students must take all of these courses:

• Issues in Criminology  (SC6630)
• Critical Issues in Social Control  (SS6610)
• Theories and Representations of Crime and Punishment (LW6505)

In Part II students must complete a dissertation, SC6620: Dissertation (45 credits).

The entry requirement is a minimum of a 2nd class honours grade 1, degree in sociology, law, politics, psychology, history, applied social studies, or another subject relevant to the study of crime. In exceptional circumstances, substantial professional experience in a relevant and related field of criminal justice may be accepted as compensating for the absence of an undergraduate degree to the required standard.

The staff involved are Dr Ciaran McCullagh (Department of Sociology) who will deliver SC6630, Dr Carmel Halton (Department of Applied Social Studies) who will deliver SS6610, and Dr Catherine O’Sullivan (Department of Law) and Dr Shane Kilcommins (Department of Law) who will deliver LW6505.

All queries should be directed to Dr Ciaran McCullagh by email at c.mccullagh@ucc.ie

The final date for applications is 31st August 2010.

The Institute for Feminist Legal Studies  (IFLS) at Osgoode Hall has launched a new blog.  The IFLS at Osgoode Hall (which is the Law School at York University in Toronto) is a leading centre for feminist legal scholarship, and home to scholars like Mary Jane Mossman, Janet Mosher and  Jamie Cameron. The Director of the IFLS is feminist and criminal lawyer  Professor Sonia Lawrence .

The new blog aims to fulfil the Institute’s mandate of “building a community of interest” amongst feminist scholars at Osgoode and beyond:

The blog aims at that mental space in which connections are made, between people and between ideas – the space where idea generation happens.

All of the regular posters are Osgoode Hall faculty members. The IFLS blog is an essential resource for feminist researchers and activists interested in legal developments in Canada and North America generally. Clear and concise in its layout, it provides updates on books and publications by feminist legal scholars (see for example this book),  innovative research, events and links to other blogs of interest. It also tracks the careers of feminist scholars. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the cutting edge of feminist scholarship.

The British Ministry of Justice has confirmed that the proposed changes to the law that would have allowed for anonymity for defendants in rape prosecutions in England and Wales, have been dropped. The mooted changes, which were the only reforms in the area of sexual violence in the Tory -Lib Dem programme for government, were the subject of widespread condemnation by feminist blogs, a facebook group, and female politicians, including acting Labour leader Harriet Harman and Conservative MP Louise Bagshawe who saw it as undermining the credibility of rape complainants.

MPs have denied a U-Turn on the issue, saying that they never intended to legislate. This is hard to believe, given Ken Clarke’s offer to MPs of a free vote . Instead of legislating for anonymity, the government now plans to introduce strengthen the Press Commission’s guidelines for journalists on protecting suspects’ identity between arrest and charge. Such an arrangement could militate against other complainants coming forward, however on the other hand, it would better protect the names and livelihoods of people who are never charged.

I wrote about the English proposals last month,  comparing the current and proposed changes to anonymity provisions with the Irish law.  The debate across the water about anonymity for defendants in rape cases highlights the hypocrisy at the heart of the corresponding Irish law. In Ireland, while a rape defendant’s right to anonymity is protected until conviction, and beyond if the judge deems it necessary to protect the victim’s identity, incest cases are subject to a completely different rationale. Read Full Post »

Yesterday saw a flurry of activity in the area of criminal justice, with the publication of the new Victim’s Charter and the signing into law of the Criminal Procedure Act 2010. Both of these developments will be examined in future posts. Today’s blog deals with the most newsworthy piece of draft legislation announced in the past 12 months: the Criminal Law (Defence and the Dwelling) Bill 2010.

This Bill has been long in gestation, with previous versions mooted by the government in 2007 and by Fine Gael in 2009. The Law Reform Commission published a lengthy and comprehensive Report late last year dealing with Criminal Defences generally.  Readers might remember I blogged about the LRC’s Report when it was published, highlighting what I saw as the gap between the Report’s recommendations about legitimate defence in the home, and the overly broad wording of the draft bill attached to the Report.

According to the Department’ s press release the Criminal Law (Defence and the Dwelling) Bill 2010 makes provision for the following:

·        definitions for such terms as “dwelling”, “property” and the “curtilage” of the dwelling.
·        the extent to which justifiable force may be used against an intruder.
·        that the use of justifiable force against an intruder with criminal intent would not exclude the use of force causing death
·        the absence of a requirement on the part of an occupier to retreat when defending the dwelling or the people in it against an intruder entering with criminal intent.
·        that a person who uses such force as is permitted by the Bill will not be liable in tort in respect of any injury, loss or damage arising from such force.

The Bill also states that where justifiable force (see below) is used,  that force does not exclude the use of lethal force against an intruder.

Read Full Post »