Mc Dowell's Law.

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis

Tuesday February 13, 2007 20:23

by C Murray

Making the Best of your Limitations...

http://www.justice.ie has details of a new 'Counter Gangland Crime Law'
published 'draft legislation' which means he thinks he's coming back, or
the guillotine will be used.

The Guillotine is a handy little device which the FF/PD administration has
been using for many years, in which full debate is disallowed ,to shove
everything through in time for 'snap' elections- of which there are few,
or recesses (of which there are many).

the Old Chestnut.

The new Legislation includes these headed sections:

1.Detention Periods to be extended up to seven full days.
2.Amendments to rights of silence (will provide link to that one later0
3. Bail- a 'senior garda may give his opinion to the court that bail should be refused
4.Juristiction on bail will be conferred on the circuit court.
5.An applicant for bail will be asked to supply a list of his assets- income and sources of income.

New offences to be created.

DNA and Finger-printing:- change of the law- extending the DNA database.
This ties into the criminal justice overhaul story- extending the admissability of hearsay
evidence- which had promoted all these issues (under a different guise)

Ger Hogan SC (of the Tara Case and the Frozen embryo case consulted on the law changes)

The new laws will be drafted in consultation with the AG.

Other Mc Dowell titbits- The 'Sundays'said that he had a 'war-chest' of
donations for the election and that he was targetting the 'grey' vote.

The older people in the community where I live are well pissed off with the
Minister's co-hort Mary Harney over Nursing homes and deportation, they
don't like seeing families separated- best target the 'aspirational' classes.
The elderly are going to vote and they do not like the PD intereference
in the family home to aid the nursing home industry either.

Civil Liberties violations are never a good election platform- too many shootings
in Dublin- and the previous legislations that we have witnessed have been
charged with unconstitutionality.