ICCL Press Release - UPDATED

Updated with additional comment and analysis, calling for Judge Cooke to appear before the Oireachtas Justice Committee

11:45am on Wednesday 11 June 2014

Ireland’s human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has described the 65-page Cooke report into the possible bugging of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), released by the Government late yesterday evening (10 June 2014), as “an exercise in smoke and mirrors”. 

Speaking today (Wednesday 11 June 2014) ICCL Director Mr Mark Kelly said:

“Constrained by the terms of reference accorded to him by Government, retired Judge Cooke has found precisely what it seems to have been preordained that he would find: that it is impossible to rule out categorically all possibility of covert surveillance.”

“What is striking, however, is that the Judge appears to have made absolutely no independent investigative attempt to establish objectively whether or not surveillance of GSOC by An Garda Síochána had been sought or authorised. It seems that not a single member of An Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces was interviewed; no examination of the records kept of the use of surveillance equipment by police or military intelligence services took place, nor were the “oversight” activities of the “designated judges” under the relevant legislation subject to any form of review”, Mr Kelly continued.

“The retired Judge’s exclusive focus on whether or not GSOC’s levels of suspicion regarding surveillance were well-founded entirely side-steps the core question of whether or not any agency of the state sought or obtained permission to engage in surveillance of our independent police complaints authority.  A report that merely revisits a range of more or less plausible explanations for communications anomalies, without even attempting to compare them with information readily available to the police and military intelligence services, can only be qualified as an exercise in smoke and mirrors” Mr Kelly added.

 “The ICCL considers that, given the manifest shortcomings in the Cooke report’s investigative process, it would be appropriate for retired Judge Cooke to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality to explain in detail the constraints that prevent him from interviewing members of An Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces”, Mr Kelly concluded.  

Mr Kelly also commented in more detail on the Cooke report’s assertion that “irrespective of the outcome, the result of any completed investigation under S. 102(4) is required to be reported by the Commission to, inter alia, the Minister and the Commissioner”  (para7.9). Mark Kelly commented:

“While Judge Cooke correctly highlights section 103 (1) of the Garda Síochána Act, obliging GSOC to make reports to the Minister and Commissioner of “progress and results of an investigation”, he fails to emphasise a crucial saving provision in section 103(2), exempting GSOC from this obligation in the event that, “in its opinion”, doing so would “not be in the public interest”.”

ENDS

Mark Kelly is available for further comment to press and broadcast media today. Please contact:

Walter Jayawardene

Communications Manager

Irish Council for Civil Liberties

Tel. + 353 1 799 4503

Mob: +353 87 9981574   

E-mail  walter.jayawardene@iccl.ie

 

NOTE TO EDITORS

The redacted text of Judge Cooke’s review is available at this link:

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/GSOC-Report-Final-REDACTED.pdf

The full text of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, which outlines the powers of GSOC, can be found at:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0020/print.html#sec103

 

ICCL Press Release - UPDATED Updated with additional comment and analysis, calling for Judge Cooke to appear before the Oireachtas Justice Committee  11:45am on Wednesday 11 June 2014 Ireland’s human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil...