3 September 1998 Edition
Dúirt siad...
The criminal justice system in Northern Ireland has already been moved further away from due process by the effective removal of the right to silence some years ago, but to add to this that the failure to answer questions or to co-operate with the police can now be corroborative eveidence is to push the system outside due process entirely. To allow a supect to be convicted on the word of a police officer, coupled with the refusal to co-operate with the officer, means that a defendent is no longer presumed innocent but must in fact prove his innocence.
Statement from the Solicitors' Criminal Bar Association. Irish News, Friday 28 August.
It was very frightening. I'm just glad that a lot of the young Catholic men were away this weekend, at the concert in Slane or wherever. God knows what that crowd would have done if they got their hands on a couple of Catholic lads.
Onlooker in Portadown after a 200-strong loyalist mob ran riot through a shopping centre last week.
The attack was not about removing the British government presence from our country. It was not an attack on the British military establishment in Ireland. It was not an attack on a commercial target. It should not be allowed to be claimed as part of the legitimate and honourable struggle for Irish independence.
Sinn Féin Vice President Pat Doherty speaking at the West Tyrone republican commemoration last Sunday.
America say they want peace in Northern Ireland and then they show the peace they're capable of in Sudan.
Libyan medical student Khalifa Al-Libi, who lives in Ireland, quoted in Ireland On Sunday 30 August.
In Ireland, every person has certain inalienable rights under the law. Among others, they have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, they have the right to a fair trial, and they have the right not to be compelled to incriminate themselves. It is a massive departure from the current position that a person should be capable of being convicted on the word of a senior police officer, and that their silence should be capable of corroborating that belief. It is highly worrying that because of of their extreme nature, these measures may convict a person who is completely innocent of the charges against them.
Michael Finucane of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Ireland On Sunday, 30 August.
We are after all, proposing that the RUC - some of whom were accused of running death squads and operating a shoot-to-kill policy just a few years ago - now be given the power to jail people on the say so of a senior officer. No matter how you cut it the RUC is unacceptable to many nationalists because it is drawn overwhelmingly from one side.
Niall O'Dowd writing in Ireland On Sunday 30 August.
A policeman could take the hump at you and you end up in prison. The same thing happened to us in Britain. They believed the police and believed we were liars and it took us 16-and-a-half years to prove them wrong.
Johnny Walker of the Birmingham Six on the new `security' legislation.
Statement from the Solicitors' Criminal Bar Association. Irish News, Friday 28 August.
It was very frightening. I'm just glad that a lot of the young Catholic men were away this weekend, at the concert in Slane or wherever. God knows what that crowd would have done if they got their hands on a couple of Catholic lads.
Onlooker in Portadown after a 200-strong loyalist mob ran riot through a shopping centre last week.
The attack was not about removing the British government presence from our country. It was not an attack on the British military establishment in Ireland. It was not an attack on a commercial target. It should not be allowed to be claimed as part of the legitimate and honourable struggle for Irish independence.
Sinn Féin Vice President Pat Doherty speaking at the West Tyrone republican commemoration last Sunday.
America say they want peace in Northern Ireland and then they show the peace they're capable of in Sudan.
Libyan medical student Khalifa Al-Libi, who lives in Ireland, quoted in Ireland On Sunday 30 August.
In Ireland, every person has certain inalienable rights under the law. Among others, they have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, they have the right to a fair trial, and they have the right not to be compelled to incriminate themselves. It is a massive departure from the current position that a person should be capable of being convicted on the word of a senior police officer, and that their silence should be capable of corroborating that belief. It is highly worrying that because of of their extreme nature, these measures may convict a person who is completely innocent of the charges against them.
Michael Finucane of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Ireland On Sunday, 30 August.
We are after all, proposing that the RUC - some of whom were accused of running death squads and operating a shoot-to-kill policy just a few years ago - now be given the power to jail people on the say so of a senior officer. No matter how you cut it the RUC is unacceptable to many nationalists because it is drawn overwhelmingly from one side.
Niall O'Dowd writing in Ireland On Sunday 30 August.
A policeman could take the hump at you and you end up in prison. The same thing happened to us in Britain. They believed the police and believed we were liars and it took us 16-and-a-half years to prove them wrong.
Johnny Walker of the Birmingham Six on the new `security' legislation.