I move that the Vote be referred back for re-consideration. We cannot congratulate the Minister on effecting any sort of reasonable or expected economies in his Department during the past twelve months nor can we congratulate him on producing an Estimate that indicates any substantial decrease in the coming year. If the Minister had any desire to effect economies we believe he could do so. We stressed that point last year when the Estimates were before the House, but notwithstanding that no attempt has been made by the Minister to effect any real savings or any real economies. If the Minister had taken the trouble of getting a committee to go in and examine carefully into the working of the Department, he would find that considerable economies could be effected and that a considerable saving could be obtained. However, it seems like beating the wind to expect that the Minister would do that.
I propose, in particular, on this Estimate to refer to the policy of the Minister's Department. When discussing this Estimate last year attention was called to the many glaring examples where members of the C.I.D. had acted illegally and, I might say brutally in dealing with citizens of the State. When we complained of that and pointed out to the Minister that many of those persons who were responsible for those crimes had been decreed and judgments obtained against them, the answer the Minister gave the House was one of encouragement to them, one of encouragement that they should act illegally. He went so far as to say that the taxpayers of the country would have to pay the decrees and expenses of the illegalities for which these people were responsible. Since then many more cases have arisen, where prisoners were brutally assaulted, where other people were seized without proper authority, and where it was proved in the judgments that those people acted illegally.
You will have the Minister, I presume, at the conclusion of the debate on this Estimate, stating that these illegalities must be encouraged, and that the taxpayer must again pay for whatever those people have done. In cases that have arisen within the last twelve months, the defence invariably, and I think without exception, put up by these members of the C.I.D. was that they were acting under orders. But when we were discussing the Estimate last year we tried to get some particulars from the Minister as to who issued these orders, whether he accepted responsibility for the issuing of these orders, whether he was, in view of what had happened and in view of the judgments of the courts, going to take any steps to notify members of the C.I.D. that they were not to adopt similar methods in future. It is quite evident to the House and to every citizen that no such orders have been issued, and that these people, feeling that they have been encouraged by the statement of the Minister on the Estimate last year, have felt that they are on a loose rein, that they are entitled to do what they like, that illegalities would be encouraged, that they are entitled to arrest citizens, throw them into prison, assault them, and so long as they have not to pay the expenses or the cost, so long as the Minister is sheltering and encouraging them, they feel it is their duty to carry on in that way. I would like to know from the Minister is it his policy or the policy of his Department that they should act in this way. The Minister is well aware that they are acting and have acted during the past twelve months in that way. Is it the policy of the Minister that they should continue to act in that way? Will the Minister on this Estimate state that all those decrees that have been obtained and expenses incurred during the past twelve months must be borne by the taxpayer?
If not saying it in so many words, at any rate the meaning of it was that the taxpayer had got no value for the money. I wonder is that his policy still? Is it the policy behind which any responsible Minister or Government would stand? Would any Government stand behind it except the Government that holds itself responsible to a certain section of the community, that has its followers to encourage them to give a loose rein to the C.I.D. in order that they can terrorise and carry on all those other things through the country so that eventually there will be a junta in office? It does not end at that.
We have heard a good deal in this Dáil about the independence of the judiciary and about the independence of the courts. We have heard it from the platforms throughout the country, from election hustings, and so on, that the judiciary stood between the people and the Executive, and that the judiciary was independent of the Government. We recognise, and everybody must recognise, that the only protection for the people of the country is the independence of its judiciary, and I think it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find in the records of any other government where a judiciary has been interfered with. But in the last few weeks it was disclosed in a court here in Dublin that a circular was issued, from the Minister or his Department, marked confidential, to the justice presiding in that court, complaining that the fines and the penalties he was inflicting were not sufficient. It was also disclosed on that occasion that it had been the practice to issue similar confidential communications to justices as to what they were to do in cases. The case I refer to was one in which a prosecution was brought under an Act passed here on the motion of the Department of Agriculture. Why were those communications marked confidential? Why all this tripe talk about the independence of the judiciary? While these people are mouthing about the independence of the judiciary we have been issuing secret documents to their judges, telling them what they should do. Who can have confidence in the judiciary when there are those secret communications passing between the Department of Justice and the Justices? I hope at least that when the Government goes out to speak on platforms it will not mouth phrases about the independence of the judiciary. It is a good thing that this was disclosed, because there is no way of getting at information of that sort. There is no way of finding out a thing like that. We may have suspicions here and there, but if we hinted at anything like that in this House, if we had not evidence for it, the Minister would get up indignantly and say: "How dare you say anything like that, where is your evidence?" and deny point blank that such a thing happened. How dare anybody think that a Government which calls itself a responsible Government would do such a thing? The independence of the judiciary!
We know that thing has been going on definitely for twelve months according to the statement made at that time —confidential documents telling the justices and the judges what to do. "We are not satisfied with the fines you are imposing." If it is some unfortunate person who is brought up for some trivial offence where the Government have some spleen against him who knows what private documents are going out telling the judge that he must do so-and-so. Where is this barrier between the Executive and the Court if a thing like that can go on?
When the Courts of Justice Bill comes before the House one provision, I hope, will be that the District Justices will be on an independent footing the same as the Circuit and High Court judges and that you will not have this underhand thing done by the Minister and his Department telling the Court what to do, to fine somebody so much, put another fellow into jail for 3 months and so on. Did anybody ever hear of a responsible Government doing anything like that? Did anybody ever hear of a dictatorship doing anything like that? They set up some sort of drumhead courtmartial but they do not tell it you are bound to sentence so and so to death or to do so and so to somebody else. Did the Minister ever read of a Government doing what his Department has been doing for the past twelve months with their confidential documents to the judges? That is, I suppose, law and order. That is what we should expect from people mouthing about law and order. That is the way to get respect for law. Can there be any respect for law or can there be reasonable and ordered conditions so long as that practice continues? As the Minister knows from his experience if a client consults a solicitor and afterwards interviews a counsel one of the last questions that will be asked is: What do you think of the chances? Who can tell what are the chances? Who can tell what way the law is going to be administered if you have a judge with a secret document from the Department of Justice telling him not to do what the statute law lays down but to do what the Minister or his Department thinks should be done in a particular case? It has reached the position that certainly no self-respecting citizen can have any respect for law that is administered in that way and I think until that method is ended and until we have heard the last of this unfounded, blatant, tripish talk about law and order we will have no order or no responsible government.
I hope when the Courts of Justice Bill is brought in that some protection or some clauses will be inserted that will be some protection to the people of the country against that kind of underhand secret communications to judges and secret interference with judges and justices on the bench. That is a matter which should have been dealt with long ago. The courts of Justice Committee went to considerable trouble and sat a long time and the Minister was in great trouble during the time it was sitting in getting his Rules of the Circuit Court through. Those Rules have been held up waiting for a Bill. We moved that they should be held up until the report of the Committee on the Courts of Justice Bill was brought in. The Minister very reluctantly consented to that. He felt there was an urgency in having the Rules introduced. It is a considerable time since the Committee has reported. That report is with the Minister's Department and so far we are waiting for the Bill that was so often promised. I am afraid it will be like the Town Tenants Bill.
