#Jobstown: Experts rebuff appeals for social media clamp-down after high-profile trial

Legal experts have rebuffed suggestions that Irish laws need to be tightened because of the use of social media during the Jobstown trial.

Liam Herrick, executive director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), told Irish Legal News there is no evidence of a “deficiency” in Ireland’s contempt laws, which are “capable of protecting the administration of justice”.

Meanwhile, Dr Eoin O’Dell, associate professor of law at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), told ILN the law “seems to be functioning well”.

According to reports, solicitor and Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan has begun working on a private member’s bill that would make it a statutory offence to comment on an ongoing criminal trial.

Mr Herrick said a blanket ban on commentary during criminal trials “would be a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression”.

But he offered suggestions for how existing contempt laws could be clarified to members of the public and those involved in proceedings.

Mr Herrick said the question of whether the law on contempt should be put on a statutory footing is “very relevant”, as it could be “better for all parties if there was the clarity provided by legislation, as opposed to leaving this on a common law footing”.

Such a move was recommended in a report by the Law Reform Commission in 1994 and is raised in an issues paper published by the Commission towards the end of last week.

Dr O’Dell, who published an extensive blog on the use of social media in the Jobstown trial on Cearta.ie this morning, said this is “not the only way to bring to the attention of the public and to the attention of people on social media what the rules relating to contempt are”.

He pointed out the Attorney General in England and Wales “issues media advisories around high-profile or controversial trials, advising not just editors but also social media users about their responsibilities”.

Dr O’Dell said: “That’s the kind of thing that could be done. The DPP in Ireland could issue similar advisories around high-profile trials.”

Six defendants, including Solidarity TD Paul Murphy, were found not guilty last week of falsely imprisoning former Tánaiste Joan Burton and her adviser during a 2014 water charges protest.

Mr Herrick told ILN the ICCL’s primary concerns following the trial and its outcome relate primarily to the right to protest, the right to freedom of assembly, and the right to freedom of expression.

He suggested that a number of mechanisms - including the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), the Policing Authority, and the ongoing Commission on the Future of Policing - could be used to review the policing of the Jobstown protest.

He said: “Under the ECHR, the obligation is on the state, where it seeks to restrict or interfere with the rights to freedom of assembly and protest, to do so in a way that is lawful and proportionate.

“The issue at stake here really is whether the means that were used to restrict the protest in this particular case were appropriate.

“What we have is a policing operation which seems to have the effect of detaining people for an extended period of time, followed by the use of a very serious criminal charge as a form of prosecution.

“There are issues operationally as to whether alternative means could have been used and, if criminal charges were necessary, whether these were the most suitable criminal charges to have been brought.”