Eroding rights associated with fair trials in order to address a specific criminal problem is not likely to be as successful as the Government might hope, according to an international expert on criminology and restorative justice.
At a conference organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Prof Robert Gordon, director of the school of criminology, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, said simply addressing rules of evidence was not likely to help in the fight against gangland crime.
The conference, Rebalancing Rights: Contemporary Trends in Human Rights and Criminal Justice, discussed legislation recently announced by Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, which is designed to tackle gangland crime.
The proposed legislation includes the extension of detention periods, restrictions on the right to silence, changes in sentencing, new offences related to possession of drug trafficking equipment and the provision of a DNA database.
Prof Gordon described the legislation as being akin to "firing a very large shotgun at a very large barn door".
"The probability of unexpected consequences are fairly high," he said.
"It could lead to an erosion in the basic process of a criminal justice trial. What's really required is a broader treatment of the whole question of organised crime."
He added that it could ultimately be seen as investing too much power in the police and prosecution.
"That could well be the thin end of a wedge that sees Ireland facing a situation where certain fundamental rights about preserving a person's home from invasion by the police and so forth, those things are eroded as well," he said.
Also speaking at the conference, Ivana Bacik, professor of criminal law at Trinity College Dublin, said the new legislation represented a populist stroke before a general election.
"It is difficult to see the rationale behind the proposed change to the right to silence," Prof Bacik said.
"However carefully worded a proposed caution might be, accused persons could well face conviction for their failure to answer questions.
"The right to silence is not a woolly liberal notion - people often have a good reason for keeping silent."
Prof Bacik said that legislation introduced by the Minister in 2006 to deal with criminal gangs had only very recently come into force and it was premature to be adding more measures before the effectiveness of these had been tested.
"In the long term, "she said, "a more effective means of dealing with gangland crime, and with crime more generally, lies in tackling structural poverty and disadvantage in communities."
Dr Paul Anthony McDermott, a barrister and lecturer in law at University College Dublin, said, however, that if the new measures were targeted properly, he did not see a problem with them.
Dr McDermott spoke about difficulties around the "exclusionary rule of evidence" and how it hindered convictions in court.
"I welcome the proposals - some do not go as far as I would like them to go - but at least they are a start," he said.
