Michael McDowell (Independent)

I listened very carefully to the Minister's reply. When I asked why do this, he said it is because we can do it. That is a remarkable proposition. I asked the question as to why should we do it and he said because we can. It is a very strange argument in favour of changing the law. Of course we can change the law. We can do many things, subject to the views of the Members of the House. However, to say to me when I ask why something should happen is that it is because we can do it is avoiding the issue of whether we should. As I understand it, if somebody comes to change the law, he or she is saying there are reasons why we should do it. I asked if the Minister would mind explaining how a journalist can say something happened and no jury can be involved but an alleged victim can say precisely the same thing, have all the same witnesses and all the same rows in the court between the lawyers for both sides and so on and have a jury trial. To say to me that we should do that because we can does not really deal with the matter in a satisfactory manner.

The Minister rightly referred to a case which I think both he and I were in, where a privacy matter was determined in the High Court, sitting without a jury, in Trim in County Meath. It was a seminal case at the time because it was to do with the nature of the right to privacy. I fully concede that in that case, there was not a right of trial by jury and it would have been strange indeed if a jury had made up new law or decided a novel point in Irish law and decided whether there was a constitutional right to privacy and what its consequences were. I am not arguing for juries to decide everything. I am merely saying that there will be cases involving the artificiality of distinguishing between a dispute between somebody who says he did not assault someone, in circumstances where there is a jury involved if that other person is the alleged victim, but if a newspaper, broadcaster or ordinary citizen publicly states their opinion on that question and makes an allegation of exactly the same kind, no jury will be involved. I cannot put the matter any further than that.