Archive for the 'Law' Category

Living above the law

May 30th, 2011

There was a wee item in the news last week that caught my attention.

An off duty Garda [police officer] was accused in the courts of beating the shite out of a bloke during a late night street brawl.  In a nutshell, a bloke made a comment about the Garda’s brother’s shirt looking ‘gay’, so the Garda beat the crap out of the bloke, leaving him unconscious with a broken nose, facial fractures, broken teeth and bleeding to the brain.  Nice.

Anyhow the Garda was convicted after pleading guilty to assault and was given an eighteen month gaol sentence last week.  He got off damned lightly in my opinion, but that’s not what struck me.

The day following the sentence, the judge announced that he had ‘revised the sentence’ and that the full eighteen months was to be suspended.  Apparently members of the Garda and prison staff are ‘entitled’ to reduced sentences as they would have a particularly tough time in gaol.

There are a couple of minor points that concern me about this.

The first is that Gardai are supposed to be the face of law and order in this country.  They should lead by example and if caught breaking the law they should receive much tougher sentences than the rest of us lawless citizens.  I can’t help but wonder if I were convicted of the same crime, would I receive a mere eighteen months [suspended]?

How come that the judge revised the sentence the following day?  There was no official appeal apart from the Garda’s legal representative contacting the judge.  The judge claimed he had ‘overlooked’ the fact that the accused was a Garda.  Again I wonder how long I would have to wait for an appeal against a sentence?  Slightly more than twenty fours hours, I would imagine.

I wonder what the victim made of all this carry on?  As he was being kicked to a pulp, he wasn’t given the chance of a reprieve?  He didn’t get the kicking suspended?  I think a sentence of eighteen months [with no suspension] would be grand.  Let the Garda get the shite kicked out of him by his cellmates so he can see what it feels like.  But then he wouldn’t have had any cellmates as he would have been given special treatment.  He would have been given a cell of his own away from the riff raff, just in case he should be treated badly by the other prisoners.

One law for them and one for us?

A nation of sheep

May 11th, 2011

I was sniffing around the Interweb and I came across a mention of Yours Truly.

A mention in itself was a rarity but a nice mention is positively unique.  However, that’s not why I am writing about it.

The question behind the post is a valid one, and one that I have thrown up a few times myself -

What the fuck is wrong with the Irish?

Over the past years we have come increasingly under the jackboot of Europe.  They now dictate most aspects of our lives.  Don’t kid yourselves that we are a democratic and independent society as that would be like saying that we determine who runs a company by voting for the receptionist at the front desk.  The majority of ‘decisions’ made by our lot have to be run past Europe first, but most ‘decisions’ are foisted on us without us even asking.

Simon, in his article is talking about the smoking ban, and that is a classic example of the kind of state interference that I am on about.

Why was the ban introduced?  Was it because of intense lobbying from the people of Ireland?  No. Did the people of Ireland have any say in the mater? No.  Why then was the ban introduced?  It was introduced purely and simply to earn brownie points in Brussels, who in turn were under intense pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.The ban was then followed by even more ridiculous exercises such as the banning of packs of ten cigarettes, and the display of any mention of cigarettes in a tobacconist’s shop.  The only result of these measures has been to close pubs and inflict further hardship on tobacco retailers.  And have the Irish objected to these Nanny laws?  Not a fucking whimper.  They bowed their heads and muttered about their clothes smelling fresher. 

I was watching The Plank on Monday night, where they were discussing the hospitality industry.  One woman [a pub owner] was asked why the trade was being decimated.  She hummed and hawed and then suggested it was competition from the supermarkets.  Plank asked her if the drink-driving laws might have had an effect.  She pounced on that one and said that yes, that was the cause.  Plank then suggested the smoking ban?  She dithered over that one, but stuck with the drink-driving laws.  This is despite the fact that the decline in pub trade coincided precisely with the introduction of the ban, and that the Licences Vintners’ Association cited the ban as the reason.  Like everyone else, the woman had been taken in by The Spin.

We have become a country that is laden down with laws.  Over the last couple of years various suggestions have been made to help our financial situation.  Every single time, we were told that it couldn’t be done ‘for legal reasons’.  Bank directors had to receive ridiculous bonuses ‘for legal reasons’.  Judges couldn’t take a pay cut ‘for legal reasons’.  Actually that example is even worse – the judges couldn’t take a pay cut ‘for constitutional reasons’. 

Has anyone ever stopped to wonder if all this is fair?  Is it fair to pay corrupt bankers millions of our money while respite homes are being closed?  Is it fair to pay billions out to continental bankers on unsecured and non-guaranteed loans while people have to wait for days on trollies in our hospitals?  Is it fair to close down half our hospitality when publicans and hoteliers could easily provide accommodation for smokers?

The Irish used to be renowned as a fighting race, and they meant ‘fighting’ as in ‘standing up for ourselves’ and not pub brawling.  We had a proud tradition of independence.  After hundreds of years of oppression, we finally gained a modicum of freedom, only to give the whole lot, and more besides, away.  We have become a nation of sheep, meekly cowing to the diktats of others and believing all the spin that is thrown at us.  Even the Greeks are laughing at us.

Why do I have the feeling that if they passed a law banning Twitter and Facebook in Ireland that only then would there be riots and bloodshed in the streets?

Ten years or five lives

February 2nd, 2010

I know it’s an all too common event these days, but I am confused.

On an apparently daily basis we hear of rape trials in this country.  Day after day, we hear of child abuse cases or random rape attacks.  There seems to be little pattern.

Two cases in the last couple of weeks caught my eye.

The first was an horrendous case of a father systematically raping one of his daughters and abusing another, over a period spanning three years.  Twice a week, he would wait for his wife to go out, and would then rape his daughters, aged six and eight. 

The second was a case of a man who broke into a house and raped a woman.

I know there is no such thing as a ‘good’ rape, but surely there are cases of rape that are worse than others?  For the woman in the second case, it was undoubtedly a terrifying ordeal, and the rapist should expect the full weight of justice, but in the first case we have a man systematically raping his own daughters, twice a week over a three year period, when the girls were mere children.

Now let’s look at the sentences.

The man who raped his daughters got ten years.

The man who raped the woman got five life sentences?

What the fuck?

There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason for such a vast disparity?  Unless there are factors ‘that were taken into consideration’?

Are we to discover that the man who raped his daughters was from a broken home?  Was he an alcoholic?  Was he abused as a child?  Did he have one of the many ‘mitigating’ pathetic excuses that for no reason whatsoever seem to be a free pass for appalling behaviour?

Or does the Irish ‘justice’ system just dislike people from Poland?

I am confused.

Man gets five life sentences for raping woman

Man jailed for ten years for rape of daughters

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