Call to keep gardaí off new complaints commission
Gardaí should not be appointed to the new Ombudsman Commission to investigate complaints against fellow gardaí, it was claimed tonight.
The Human Rights Commission said it was vital to secure independent investigators to build public confidence in the body, which will be set up under the Garda Bill.
“If there are three members, all three should be from outside the Gardai. It absolutely has to be independent and be seen to be independent,” said president Dr Maurice Manning.
He said the commission, which originally proposed the Ombudsman model in a policy document three years ago, would have been happier if it had been closer to the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.
“Our view is that the Northern model is one which has worked very well. You wouldn’t be re-inventing the wheel, you’d be going in to follow a success story.”
The commission will replace the Garda Complaints Board, which has been restricted in its reliance on gardai investigating gardai, the inability to compel gardai to answer questions about a complaint and the lack of supervision over the Garda officers appointed to investigate the complaint.
Labour Justice spokesman Joe Costello TD said the current situation was totally unsatisfactory.
“Against the background of the Morris Report revelations of corrupt behaviour by gardai in Donegal, there needs to be new thinking of how Garda complaints are managed,” he said.
Mr Costello also called for the establishment of an independent Ombudsman Commission along the lines of the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland.
But Justice Minister Michael McDowell has insisted that the new Garda Ombudsman Commission would have the same powers.
“It has been repeatedly said by people who have not read the legislation that the Ombudsman Commission has lesser powers than those accorded to the Ombudsman Commission in Northern Ireland. That is emphatically not the case. It has every power which the Ombudsman does, and some other powers which it does not have, in relation to systemic problems in an Garda Siochana,” he said.
Mr McDowell was speaking at the launch of the annual report of the Garda Complaints Board, which showed the number of complaints increased by 5% last year to 1,232.
The forthcoming Ombudsman Commission will have the power to conduct its own investigations, to arrest members of the force and to seize documents from garda stations
However, it will have to apply to the Department of Justice for permission to view documents which related to the ’security of the state’.
“No security service anywhere in world would allow people to knock on its door and start rooting through its files without prior notice and the capacity to ensure the interests of the state were protected,” said Mr McDowell.
This requirement has been criticised by Senator Maurice Hayes, who was appointed by Minister McDowell to oversee the implementation of the Ombudsman Commission.
He has also said the Northern model of a single ombudsman for the Gardaí would be preferable to the three-person Ombudsman Commission.
However, Mr McDowell said multi-member bodies were the norm internationally and added that contentious cases would be decided by a majority vote.
“I believe the case for a three person body is overwhelming in the Irish circumstances and whereas I respect other people’s views, I don’t believe the personality driven approach is the correct one and I respectfully disagree with my good friend Senator Maurice Hayes,” he said.
Mr McDowell said the new Garda Ombudsman would require substantially more resources because the present Complaints Board had only 22 staff compared with 120 for the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland.
He added that his forthcoming Garda Bill would compel gardai to answer questions about their conduct on duty and would not allow them to hide behind the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
“There’s a radical difference between proof beyond reasonable doubt and proof beyond probability. You can’t have a Garda Siochana discipline code based on proof beyond reasonable doubt because that’s too high a standard,” he said.
The annual report of the Garda Complaints Board showed there was a 12% increase in complaints of discourtesy by gardai but a 13% decrease in complaints of abuse of authority.
Around 640 complaints were deemed inadmissible by the board and another 302 were withdrawn.
The board referred 31 cases of minor breaches of discipline to Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy.
“The commissioner informed the board that he had decided to issue a warning to a member in four cases, issue advice in 15 cases and to take no further action in three cases,” the report said.
It added that the board was awaiting his decision in the remaining nine cases.
The DPP decided to prosecute three gardai involved in the Reclaim the Streets Mayday protest in 2002 after two complaints were referred to it by the complaints board. One garda was convicted and the rest were acquitted.
Board chairman Gordon Holmes raised concerns about a case in which a Garda officer took out a letter from Environment Minister Dick Roche from an investigation file, which had testified to the injuries suffered by a constituent who had been in Garda custody.
“This, in the opinion of the board, was manifestly wrong as it is entitled to see all of the evidence gathered in the course of an investigation,” said Mr Holmes.
He added that he was not satisfied with the response he received from Garda Commissioner Mr Conroy.
The board’s complaints tribunal dealt with 18 gardai who were involved in 49 suspected breaches of discipline. One garda was docked four weeks’ pay for arresting a member of the public without reasonable cause and carrying out a drugs search on them.
Another garda was docked 12 weeks’ pay for three breaches of discipline which involved sexual harassment of a member of the public by making inappropriate sexual gestures towards her.
In another case, a garda was reprimanded for using unnecessary violence by hitting a person on the legs with a baton and was also fined four weeks’ pay.
However, the tribunal was not able to hear two cases before it because the gardai involved had retired from the force and it was also prevented from hearing a complaint about a garda who punched a man twice in the face because of a High Court order.
Mr Holmes said it was surprising that there were still around 1,200 complaints to the board due to its limited powers, and added that he expected the number of complaints to increase when the new Garda Ombudsman was set up.
However, he said he still believed that the ordinary man on the street had confidence in the Gardai.
“I don’t think the Donegal situation is endemic throughout the board. Individual gardai have distinguished themselves in so many different ways. Both for personal bravery and for consideration of the public, they well deserve our praise and our support,” he said.
