Courts face chaos over disruption by Gardaí

GARDAÍ are on a collision course with Justice Minister Dermot Ahern over threatened industrial action which would cripple the operation of the country’s circuit and high courts within two weeks.

Last night, the Garda Representative Association (GRA) confirmed their members intend, on March 22, withdrawing from an informal system which allows officers to appear as witnesses in circuit and high court cases, without being formally summonsed.

GRA vice-president Damien McCarthy said: “We will merely be strictly enforcing the principles of law, whereby Garda witnesses should be formally summonsed to appear.

“There was a great deal of flexibility there before.

“Now we are saying is that if we are required in either the circuit or the high court for trials, we are demanding to be served with a written summons,” he added.

This will mean gardaí will no longer co-operate with a system whereby individual superintendents decide informally upon times when officers should attend court as witnesses.

The change will not affect gardaí who are prosecuting cases, but could be expected to make big cases, when a large number of gardaí may be attending as witnesses, practically unworkable, or remove them from duties for several days at a time.

Solicitor Tony Collier said this action could cause severe disruption in cases.

“In trials of serious crime, such as murder, there can be up to 40 Garda witnesses.”

This is likely to be exacerbated by an escalation of industrial action by public servants in the courts service, which has a role in issuing the witnesses summons.

Gardaí will also be writing to superintendents in the coming days to inform them they will no longer utilise mobile phones, home phones or other private equipment, for work purposes.

This action is expected to severely affect the force’s effectiveness in areas of the country where a new Garda digital radio service is still not operational.

In response to the threatened Garda action, a Department of Justice spokesman reiterated Mr Ahern’s previous statement that under the “Garda Act it is illegal for members of the force to take industrial action. This is still his position”.

However, Mr McCarthy said that rather than breaking the law the GRA action would merely be the gardaí “sticking closely to the exact principle of the law”.