Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, the reality as it stands is that a person is not required to indicate that he or she is pleading not guilty until he or she is put in charge of the jury at the beginning of the trial. While Senator McDowell has perhaps selected the example that would cause me to change my mind and I would not want a situation where a person was allowed to essentially pillory another person to ascertain what the evidence is, I also fall back on first principles in respect of our system, which state that a person is entitled to know the case against him or her before facing it.There is something in saying that the accused should be entitled to know the entirety of the evidence that will be adduced at trial before making a decision about whether he or she wishes to plead guilty or not guilty. This is the basis of the amendment. Again, I would not push it very hard but it is unusual, given other aspects of certain pretrial measures. I have cited the example of section 4E of the 1967 Act. I say this in the context of other things that were said during the discussion on section 1. There might be a feeling with regard to legal aid lawyers - I balk somewhat at that term given that pretty much every criminal law practitioner in the State is a legal aid lawyer - that there would be a practice whereby they would automatically seek a preliminary hearing in order to prove their worth or to show they were committed to the defence or that they were doing everything they could. There are lots of other preliminary trial applications that can be made. In Dublin, for example, we already have pretrial hearings or there was, for a long number of years. It was a trial period or a probationary period as to whether pretrial periods would work. They did not. However, there are applications, for example under section 4E, that allow an accused person to challenge whether or not a prima faciecase has been made in the evidence that has been provided as part of the book of evidence, as supplied under section 4B of the 1967 Act. Those applications are unusual, even though there is the right for any defence practitioner to bring that application at any stage before the trial process. They do not do it because judges are not fools. Judges know when one is playing for time or putting on a show, or whatever it is. I would have no fear that this would happen in preliminary trial hearings either. Is there something to be said for allowing an accused person to have a full understanding of the evidence that will be called against him or her at trial, before declaring before the court whether he or she is pleading guilty or not guilty?