Citizens’ rights trampled on again

Pat Carey has been denied his entitlement to due process, writes Michael Clifford

THE last week or so has provided a searing insight into the issue of citizens’ rights. For some, their rights are a source of armoury against the might of the State.

These rights supercede any concept of the “public interest”, the observance of which is required in any functioning democracy.

For others, their rights can be trampled on at will, simply because they have not been lawyered up in a legal process.

Those who have found themselves caught up in the investigation into the sale of Siteserv by the IBRC to a Denis O’Brien company have had their right to confidentiality confirmed by the judge chairing the inquiry.

Judge Brian Cregan has ruled that this right of confidentiality overrides any competing right of the “public interest” to find out what happened in a transaction in which the State lost €105m at a time of living austerely.

But rights is rights. The citizen must be protected, particularly in a country where there is lingering suspicion of the power of the State.

Others are not so fortunate. Last week, Pat Carey had his rights trampled on in an appalling fashion.

His right to privacy; his right to a good name; his right to due process were all denied him.

He is reportedly the subject of a Garda investigation into an allegation of child sexual abuse dating back more than 20 years. He has not been contacted by the gardaí about any such matter.

He does not know as a fact that he is the subject of any such investigation.

He has been denied his entitlement to due process in this regard.

He was forced to make a statement based on information he got through the media about allegations rather than through official channels.

If Mr Carey was a party to an inquiry into financial matters, he would be protected.

It is therefore ironic that because he may — and it has not been confirmed — be the subject of an untested claim, his reputation has been severely, and possibly irreparably damaged.

The media has questions to answer in this regard, particularly the Irish Independent.

The kernel of the issue is the “public interest” test of whether publication was justified in the public interest, or whether the imperative was entirely commercial and based on nothing more than public curiosity.

Even bigger questions arise for the gardaí.

What the whole affair illustrates more clearly than ever before is that the force has the unaccountable power to trample on a citizen’s rights.

Most members of the force would recoil at the idea of trampling on a citizen’s rights.

Form shows, however, that there are individuals who for various reasons abuse that power repeatedly.

As with an issue like corruption in Irish life, the abuse is compounded and even encouraged because it is perpetrated with impunity.

The Garda commissioner has ordered an inquiry into the leaking of the information in the Pat Carey case, but don’t hold your breath in awaiting a conclusive outcome to such an inquiry.

The abuse of citizens’ rights in this manner is bad enough when it is done for little more than titillation or the vicarious thrill of conveying the information into the public domain.

So far in Pat Carey’s case, it doesn’t appear that there is a darker motive involved.

This is not always the case.

Last August, RTÉ News reported that the Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy was going to be charged in relation to the detention of Tánaiste Joan Burton at a protest in November 2014.

A few days before the RTÉ report, a newspaper ran a story that Murphy wouldn’t be charged because of an administrative cock-up.

It might well be the case that the leak to RTÉ was designed to counter the bad publicity that accompanied the newspaper story.

On such matters, a citizen’s rights are relegated to a PR tool.

Far worse was the treatment of the Independent TD Clare Daly.

On January 28, 2013, she was arrested for drink driving, handcuffed, and brought to a Garda station. It turned out that she wasn’t over the drink driving limit. The arrest was leaked to a newspaper within hours.

It looked like an attempt to smear Daly, who, at the time, was prominent in highlighting the abuse of the penalty points system by senior gardaí.

There is an even worse case though, one that involves an attempt to smear a member of the force itself.

In 2011, an attempt was made to blame Sgt Maurice McCabe for the loss of a computer seized from a priest who was convicted of child sexual abuse offences.

By then, McCabe was a thorn in the side of Garda management through his complaints about incompetence in the force.

As first reported in this newspaper, the attempt to blame him for the loss of the computer had all the hallmarks of a scapegoating exercise.

A disciplinary process was initiated against him, but once McCabe became aware of what was afoot, he managed to defend himself entirely against what was described by his lawyer as a “sham exercise”.

Sgt Maurice McCabe

The point is that had the disciplinary process advanced and found against him, there is little doubt but that the result would have been leaked to the media.

Headlines would have followed combining the words “whistleblower” and “child porn computer”, which would have undoubtedly dealt a severe blow to McCabe’s credibility, not to mind smearing his character in the most nefarious manner.

That case is one of more than a dozen currently being examined by the Higgins Commission of Investigation.

It will be interesting to see what Kevin Higgins has to say on the matter when he reports, and whether he identifies any individual within the force as bearing responsibility for a shocking episode.

While motives behind leaks from the force can vary from titillation to destroying reputations on a false premise, the fact remains that the power involved is unaccountable.

Rights which are deemed sacred in other forums are trampled on without a second thought.

Tackling this will not be easy.

Since 2005, legislation has been in place to make it a criminal offence for members of the force to reveal confidential information.

However, as with many other laws, legislation is not matched with commensurate enforcement.

For those disposed to abuse the power vested in their position, there is no incentive to change irrespective of the consequences for the rights of citizens.

Michael Clifford