Give Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe some credit: The last time he was in the news, it was because he was the politician with sufficient foresight to realise that Fine Gael’s proposal to honour the Dublin Metropolitan Police would be unpopular, and his intervention resulted in that pleasant pre-pandemic month we all spent debating the virtues and vices of the Black and Tans.
His latest intervention, though, is one that the aforementioned Black and Tans would presumably have approved of, given their fondness for exceeding the strict boundaries of police work:
Videoing of Garda on the beat by members of the general public should not be allowed, a Clare TD has outlined.
Officials within the Department of Justice have confirmed that new laws are to be brought before the Government this month. The Digital Recording Bill 2021 would legislate the wearing of Garda bodycams.
If approved by the Government, it will then be submitted to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the formal drafting of the bill. The body-worn cameras will have to be visible on the clothing of each Garda officer.
Speaking at a meeting of the Clare Joint Policing Committee (JPC). Cathal Crowe TD (FF) detailed that discussions continued at Government level on the proposal. He voiced his opposition to members of the public who opt to video Gardaí and share the footage online.
“It is not good enough for people to be taunting them with videos, there should be no videoing of Gardaí allowed,” the Meelick native stated.
Credit to the Clare Echo, by the way, for the original reporting of this story.
What makes it interesting is that we’re just days removed from Crowe composing his mandatory-for-all-Irish-politicians tweet about the verdict in the George Floyd trial in Minnesota:
Good to see justice served in America tonight #blacklivesmatter RIP George Floyd pic.twitter.com/oFbG6Diqg4
— Cathal Crowe T.D. (@CathalCroweTD) April 20, 2021
The Floyd trial, of course, only came about because a member of the public videoed the original arrest, and footage of it spread like wildfire on social media. Had there been no mobile phone footage of the police kneeling on Floyd’s neck, then there’s every reason to suspect that his death would have been recorded as just another death in custody, and his name would not be known the world over, as it is. It takes a very strange way of thinking to go from “justice was done for George” to “we should ban people from videoing the Gardai”.
Let’s say, for example, that his proposal passed in Ireland, and there was a case where somebody died following an arrest. Would a person who had illegally videoed the arrest even come forward, knowing that they had broken the law? Would their evidence even be admissible in court? Those are open questions.
And even without getting into the nuts and bolts of the rules of evidence, there’s another important argument too: The whole point of this proposal, he says, is that videoing Gardai makes them uncomfortable. And to be sure, it almost certainly does.
But it also almost certainly makes them act in a more by-the-book manner. A Garda who is being recorded is under more pressure to act completely by the book, and in accordance with the law, than he or she might otherwise be. That’s not to say, of course, that there’s an epidemic of Gardai acting illegally, but it does no harm that citizens have an additional tool to defend themselves from people acting with the full power and authority of the state. The rights of the ordinary person, after all, are more important than Garda comfort.
Finally, there’s a question about how this would even be enforced. Would people be arrested on suspicion of videoing Gardai? Would they have their phones confiscated? Would this be enforced on a widespread basis, or might it, as you suspect, become a new offence to arrest people “on suspicion” of having committed?
All of those questions make it a truly terrible idea. In ordinary times, we wouldn’t even bother writing about ideas this bad. But then, as Gary revealed yesterday, this is the same Government that just made it illegal to give a bride a free glass of champagne. So who knows where this one might go.