The Gazette 1996

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GAZETTE

APRIL/MAY 1996

Drug Trafficers, Lay Members and 'Ambulance Chasers' - All Grist to the Media Mill

In a high profile month for the solicitors' profession in the media, three main subjects dominated namely (1) The Society's opposition to the seven day detention proposals in the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Bill, (2) the publication of Second Report of the Lay Members of the ; Registrar's Committee and (3) a | medical profession attack on solicitors alleging "qmbulance chasing" and improper advertising to promote medical negligence claims. The Society's opposition in principle to the seven day detention provisions of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Bill 1996, objection on the basis that these detention | provisions constituted a threat to the civil liberties of all citizens, was widely reported in the national media. | The terms of the Society's press release were quoted extensively in all national newspapers. Indeed, when the j Viewpoint in the March Gazette, I containing broadly speaking the same j material as the original press release, was subsequently published, both the Irish Times and Irish Independent again reported the matter fully. The Chairman of the Society's Criminal Law Committee, James MacGuill, was interviewed on the Morning Ireland RTE 1 radio programme. He emphasised that, even though the Society was opposed in principle to citizens being liable to detention without charge for up to seven days for the purposes of interrogation, solicitors fully understood the scourge of drug-related crime and would support any reasonable Government proposal to help deal with it. "To put everything in context, when the Minister announced her campaign last year, there were seventeen proposals made. Solicitors had no difficulties with sixteen of those proposals. We have 1. Opposition to Seven Day Detention

they peddle, and they have a vested interest in turning young people into drug addicts. "Most people questioned in relation to drug pushing are guilty and if a few innocent souls have to be held for seven days in the relative luxury of prison, so be it." It is to be expected that the coverage, both supportive and hostile, of the Society's position on this subject will continue as the Bill makes further progress through the Oireachtas. The Society forwarded the second report of the lay members of the Registrar's Committee to the Minister for Justice on 29 March 1996. Although under no obligation to do so, two weeks later the Society made copies of the report available to the media. The Society chose to do this for the same reason that it voluntarily appointed lay members to its Registrar's Committee in the first place. It believes in transparency and has absolutely nothing to hide in relation to its complaints handling procedure which can only have public confidence in it strengthened when independent lay members favourably report, as they did this year, that the Society operates "a fair and transparent complaints procedure". The lay members also noted progress during the past year reflecting "the commitment of the Law Society to pursue complaints in a fair and balanced way and to develop and implement improvements in the procedures to achieve that". An overwhelmingly positive lay members' report such as this one does not make very exciting news and so it was inevitable that the reporting would tend to focus on the few and 2. Report of the Lay Members of the Registrar's Committee

'VjPJr ft David Hanley, the grand inquisitor on RTE Radio 7's Morning Ireland programme, recently interviewed on separate occasions the Law Society's James MacGuill and Ken Murphy. first hand experience on a daily basis of the harm that drug barons are causing, both to the victims of crime and the drug addicts who are used as tools by the barons, so we are perhaps more hostile than anyone to drug barons and anxious to see that they are put down. However, the particular proposal for seven days detention without charge is one which would be generally unacceptable throughout the world", he said. Although the Society's position was reported with respect in most newspapers, James MacGuill was not spared a tabloid backlash in the form of the 'John Donlon on Monday' column in the Daily Star on 18 March 1996 which contained the following. "People are fed up with this kind of claptrap from the Law Society. It is time Mr. MacGuill and his ilk learned a few home truths.

"Drug dealers are scum. They are polluting the country with the stuff

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