Man loses Supreme Court case for bilingual jury

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Where does it say that in the constitution?

It says that Irish is the first official language of the state, de facto we have a right to do our business with the state in its first official language.

snubbleste

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Where does it say that in the constitution?

I did not say it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_the_Irish_language#Constitution

bumper234

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

It says that Irish is the first official language of the state, de facto we have a right to do our business with the state in its first official language.

And again i point out


No one is stopping him from conducting his business in the Irish language, he does not want TRANSLATORS in court translating for the NON IRISH SPEAKING jurors.

Iwasfrozen

snubbleste wrote: »

I did not say it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_the_Irish_language#Constitution

It says that Irish is the first official language of the state, de facto we have a right to do our business with the state in its first official language.

From "The Irish language as the national language is the first official language." to "Everyone is entitled to conduct their business with the State in Irish - even if there exists no Irish speakers." is a huge leap in logic. The former does not imply the latter.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

bumper234 wrote: »

And again i point out


No one is stopping him from conducting his business in the Irish language, he does not want TRANSLATORS in court translating for the NON IRISH SPEAKING jurors.

I wasn't taking the muppets side, read my earlier posts, I AGREE WITH YOU.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

From "The Irish language as the national language is the first official language." to "Everyone is entitled to conduct their business with the State in Irish - even if there exists no Irish speakers." is a huge leap in logic. The former does not imply the latter.

It does legally.
Re Implied(unremunerated) Rights, Ryan V Attorney General, the Irish Supreme Court ruled the Constitution by its wording not only conferred rights directly it also implied, by its wording, rights.
No one is actually disputing the right to conduct your business with the state through Irish, but that is not what this muppet was looking for.

Iwasfrozen

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

It does legally.
Re Implied Rights Ryan V Attorney General, the Irish Supreme Court ruled the Constitution by its wording not only conferred rights directly it also implied, by its wording, rights.
No one is actually disputing the right to conduct your business with the state through Irish, but that is not what this muppet was looking for.

Tbh I never heard of it so I did a quick google but I don't see any specific mentions to article 8 re implied rights?

bumper234

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

I wasn't taking the muppets side, read my earlier posts, I AGREE WITH YOU.

Apologies

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Tbh I never heard of it so I did a quick google but I don't see any specific mentions to article 8 re implied rights?

Read the full judgement, it was ground breaking, the court found that the rights of the individual exceeded those enumerated in the Constitution and held that the citizen also held unremunerated (implied) rights stemming from the constitution.
From a legal standpoint if Irish is the first Official language of the state then de facto it is logically the right of each individual to demand to conduct their business with the state through said first official language.

Iwasfrozen

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

Read the full judgement, it was ground breaking, the court found that the rights of the individual exceeded those enumerated in the Constitution and held that the citizen also held unremunerated (implied) rights stemming from the constitution.
From a legal standpoint if Irish is the first Official language of the state then de facto it is logically the right of each individual to demand to conduct their business with the state through said first official language.

But what is an implied right? Just because a person can have rights beyond what is stated in the constitution doesn't mean they do in this case. Has there ever been a judgement on this?

Anyway I agree with that others have been saying, a translator was to be provided but asking for an entirely Irish speaking jury was impractical and would have excluded a lot of people from being jurors.

GaelMise

GenieOz wrote: »

No, he shouldn't have been afforded it. A translator is more than than sufficient.

If he wants a bilingual jury then he should campaign for it when he's not busy 'allegedly' being a scumbag assaulting people with broken bottles.

So full and uninhibited access to the justice system should only be afforded to those who speak English? Or only to those whos guilt you have not already decided?

GaelMise

For Forks Sake wrote: »

What's the Irish for "don't feed the troll"?

You think expecting the Supreme court to uphold the rights of citizens is trolling? Are you for real?

Santa Cruz

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

Read the full judgement, it was ground breaking, the court found that the rights of the individual exceeded those enumerated in the Constitution and held that the citizen also held unremunerated (implied) rights stemming from the constitution.
From a legal standpoint if Irish is the first Official language of the state then de facto it is logically the right of each individual to demand to conduct their business with the state through said first official language.

All le lu an poc ar buile. Not guilty

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

So full and uninhibited access to the justice system should only be afforded to those who speak English? Or only to those whos guilt you have not already decided?

Why should he be allowed to dictate what sort of people are allowed to sit on the jury in the case involving him?

A jury is made up of his peers. Most of his peers cannot speak Irish that well, at least not well enough to be able to listen and understand unaided in something as important as a court case.

A translator is all that is needed, and provides him with full and uninhibited access to the justice system. There is no issue here at all.

I mean, his choice here is either a translator or no translator, and would you really want to run the risk of your jury not fully comprehending what is going on? I don't see how you can fairly select a jury if you have to exclude anyone who isn't fluent in Irish. That's a massive amount of people to exclude (the majority of the population).

GaelMise

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

From a purely academic standpoint I'm curious as to how he believes he's entitled to a bilingual jury as opposed to his defence being merely translated from Irish to English for the benefit of those non-proficient in Irish.

Communication through an interpeter is quite limiting and will inevetabley impact on the defence. Access to a jury that can speak the language of the defendant in bilingual countries is quite common, the French speaking minority in canada for example have the right to a French speaking jury because it is recognised that having to defend yourself through an interpertor will negativly impact the defendants case.

From a practical standpoint it reeks of disingenuousness in the same manner of road offenders suddenly struck by a desire to be dealt with through Irish alone. At least this nonsense can't be challenged any higher up now. Really it's a pity so many of the genuine lovers of Irish are marred by actions of the few self-servers like this.

It can, and hopefully will be taken on to the ECHR.
I hope you don't think you speak for 'genuine lovers of Irish'. Just take a glance at commentary on this in Irish and you will see that the Irish language community are fully supportive of his rights to be tried by a jury that he can speak to in his first language.

awec

Comparing the Irish language to French speaking Canada is like comparing chalk and cheese. French speakers are not a tiny minority in Canada, it's almost 25% of the population which is about 7 million people.

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

Why should he be allowed to dictate what sort of people are allowed to sit on the jury in the case involving him?

He is not, he has no say on who can sit on the jury, merely that they be able to understand him in his first language. This is a right that members of minority language communities are commonly afforded.

Its also a right that English speakers are afforded, a screening process has been implemented in Dublin lately to ensure that all members of the jury can speak English.
Its a rather bizzare argument that holds that this is ok when it comes to our second official language but not our first official language.

A translator is all that is needed, and provides him with full and uninhibited access to the justice system. There is no issue here at all.

How do you know that having to access the justice system through a translater will not inhibit his access to justice. I have heard quite a number of people comment on this decision including from those activly involved in the system who say that such a system will indeed inhibit access.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

So full and uninhibited access to the justice system should only be afforded to those who speak English? Or only to those whos guilt you have not already decided?

He was not being denied access to the "full and uninhibited access to the justoce system" though! All that's happened is that the courts have refused to bow to his silly demand and seen through his attempt at getting his case dropped on a technicality. How would his court case be any different if the jury were made up of people who only speak English and do not have fluency in the Irish language?

How many people in this country do you think there are who would be able to sit on a jury for a couple of days and understand EVERYTHING that is being said if the case was to be heard only in Irish? The pool would be tiny and then the chances of this guy not knowing some would make it even smaller and possibly unattainable. The fact that it would also mean that a large majority of Irish citizens would be unable to be chosen for jury duty would surely be 7nconstitutional.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Communication through an interpeter is quite limiting and will inevetabley impact on the defence. Access to a jury that can speak the language of the defendant in bilingual countries is quite common, the French speaking minority in canada for example have the right to a French speaking jury because it is recognised that having to defend yourself through an interpertor will negativly impact the defendants case.



It can, and hopefully will be taken on to the ECHR.
I hope you don't think you speak for 'genuine lovers of Irish'. Just take a glance at commentary on this in Irish and you will see that the Irish language community are fully supportive of his rights to be tried by a jury that he can speak to in his first language.

So a Polish person an now demand an all Polish speaking jury? I was recently on jury duty where an Irish man accused a Lithuanian man of assault. The Lithuanian man and his friends gave evidence in Lithuanian via a translator. The man was found not guilty so please don't give me that bull****.

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

He is not, he has no say on who can sit on the jury, merely that they be able to understand him in his first language. This is a right that members of minority language communities are commonly afforded.

Its also a right that English speakers are afforded, a screening process has been implemented in Dublin lately to ensure that all members of the jury can speak English.
Its a rather bizzare argument that holds that this is ok when it comes to our second official language but not our first official language.



How do you know that having to access the justice system through a translater will not inhibit his access to justice. I have heard quite a number of people comment on this decision including from those activly involved in the system who say that such a system will indeed inhibit access.

Er, he is. It's pretty much exactly what he wants.

"You should only be able to sit in my jury if you are one of the tiny percentage of people who are fluent enough to understand Irish unaided."

Can you provide any evidence that it will inhibit his justice? Or is anecdotal "I heard from someone" all we are going on here?

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

Comparing the Irish language to French speaking Canada is like comparing chalk and cheese. French speakers are not a tiny minority in Canada, it's almost 25% of the population which is about 7 million people.

So you conceed then that your argument about having to exclude the majoity of the population is wrong?

Is there a reason that a minority of 25% is different to a minority of 5% other than pretending that there is suits your argument?

shruikan2553

GaelMise wrote: »

So you conceed then that your argument about having to exclude the majoity of the population is wrong?

Is there a reason that a minority of 25% is different to a minority of 5% other than pretending that there is suits your argument?

Percentages mean nothing. If what above is true then in Canada they have nearly twice the population of our country to choose a jury from.

Aka Ishur

I wonder how supportive the Irish speaking community would be after a few months of being called for Jury Duty all over the country every second week! It always amazes me how short sighted the more militant Irish speakers are. You would end up with any a$$hole with 2 words of Irish demanding a Irish speaking jury. A register of gaelgeoir's would have to be kept, and you can be sure that half the people on this list would be swiftly denying having aon focail, to dodge being called up. It would be damage the language more than anything in the last 20 years.

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

Er, he is. It's pretty much exactly what he wants.

"You should only be able to sit in my jury if you are one of the tiny percentage of people who are fluent enough to understand Irish unaided."

Can you provide any evidence that it will inhibit his justice? Or is anecdotal "I heard from someone" all we are going on here?

Er. he is not, the only thing at issue is the language competency of the Jury, its already accepted that jury members can be screned on the basis of their language competency in the Irish system, internationally it is accepted that you can have a jury composed of speakers of a minority language when a speaker of that minority language are being tried.
Noting out of the ordinary was being sought in that case.

GaelMise

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Percentages mean nothing. If what above is true then in Canada they have nearly twice the population of our country to choose a jury from.

So? They would also have many multiples of the case load to call jurys for.

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

So you conceed then that your argument about having to exclude the majoity of the population is wrong?

Is there a reason that a minority of 25% is different to a minority of 5% other than pretending that there is suits your argument?

Well, 25% is massively different to 5%.

Especially when you look at the actual numbers behind it.

How many Irish speakers in Ireland are actually fluent enough to be able to comprehend something as important as a court case? I'd say a small percentage of what is already a tiny percentage of the whole population. How do you ensure that any Irish speaking jury members will actually understand to the level expected? Do you have to test them all beforehand?

There are what, 40,000 native Irish speakers in Ireland? That's 0.8% of the population. Let's say there are another 60,000 people who are English speakers but who understand Irish to a level that would be acceptable and fair. 100,000 people, out of 4.5 million. 2% of the population? Even double that to 4% and you are saying 96% of the population are excluded.

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

Er. he is not, the only thing at issue is the language competency of the Jury, its already accepted that jury members can be screned on the basis of their language competency in the Irish system, internationally it is accepted that you can have a jury composed of speakers of a minority language when a speaker of that minority language are being tried.
Noting out of the ordinary was being sought in that case.

How is he not?

Is he, or is he not asking that only people fluent in Irish are able to sit on this jury involving him?

Does that, or does that not rule out the overwhelming majority of possible jurors?

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

So? They would also have many multiples of the case load to call jurys for.

Why should the majority of the population be denied their right to serve on a jury?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

shruikan2553

GaelMise wrote: »

So? They would also have many multiples of the case load to call jurys for.

With such a wide range of people getting Jimmy from down the road who knows the person involved is less of a risk. They would also need to keep a list of those who can speak Irish and if the census is anything to go by people will claim that they do, turn out to only be able to ask to go to the toilet and then be sent home. Then anyone left who can actually speak Irish can just claim that they cant and get to go home. Of those left how many are actually fluent enough to take part in a court case?

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

How is he not?

Is he, or is he not asking that only people fluent in Irish are able to sit on this jury involving him?

Yes, the issue in question is one of compentancy in a language, where you seem to be struggeling is with the supposed implication that this has any further significance beyond what languages the jury is able to speak.

Does that, or does that not rule out the overwhelming majority of possible jurors?

Yes, it does. Again the question is, so what? If the potential pool goes from 50,000 to 1,000 what of it, you only need 12.
Again, excluding the majority of potential jury members in the interest of ensuring that the jury is competent in the first language of the defendant is not a problem, this is not some outragous unprecedented demand, it happens regularly in legal systems throughout the world.

You seem to think that it breaks some principle of having a trial by a jury of your peers, but it just doesnt.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Yes, the issue in question is one of compentancy in a language, where you seem to be struggeling is with the supposed implication that this has any further significance beyond what languages the jury is able to speak.



Yes, it does. Again the question is, so what? If the potential pool goes from 50,000 to 1,000 what of it, you only need 12.
Again, excluding the majority of potential jury members in the interest of ensuring that the jury is competent in the first language of the defendant is not a problem, this is not some outragous unprecedented demand, it happens regularly in legal systems throughout the world.

You seem to think that it breaks some principle of having a trial by a jury of your peers, but it just doesnt.

It is unconstitutional as it practically bars the majority of the citizens of Ireland from taking part in jury service! Again i ask should a Polish or Chinese or Nigerian person be able to demand a jury of people who are fluent in their language?

hfallada

How much detail would be left out of the court case due to the English Language not being the easiest to translate into Irish, as Irish lacks alot of English word equivalents? I imagine a ton of details. Irish has to be one of the most slowly evolving European Languages. Nearly every English word has a German translation available or the Germans just use the english word

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

Yes, the issue in question is one of compentancy in a language, where you seem to be struggeling is with the supposed implication that this has any further significance beyond what languages the jury is able to speak.



Yes, it does. Again the question is, so what? If the potential pool goes from 50,000 to 1,000 what of it, you only need 12.
Again, excluding the majority of potential jury members in the interest of ensuring that the jury is competent in the first language of the defendant is not a problem, this is not some outragous unprecedented demand, it happens regularly in legal systems throughout the world.

You seem to think that it breaks some principle of having a trial by a jury of your peers, but it just doesnt.

Can you point out some legal systems where about 95%+ of the population will be excluded to have trials in a language spoken natively by less than 1% of the population?

A jury is supposed to be representative of his peers as much as realistically possible. How can it be representative if all but a tiny percentage of the population cannot be selected?

GaelMise

shruikan2553 wrote: »

With such a wide range of people getting Jimmy from down the road who knows the person involved is less of a risk. They would also need to keep a list of those who can speak Irish and if the census is anything to go by people will claim that they do, turn out to only be able to ask to go to the toilet and then be sent home. Then anyone left who can actually speak Irish can just claim that they cant and get to go home. Of those left how many are actually fluent enough to take part in a court case?

You do realise that they ask those called if they know the defendant at the start right? It does happen quite often in cases generally (Ireland is a small country) those people are simply not chosen for that case.
The idea that there are not enough Irish speakers for this to be workable is a joke, the circuit court works on a geographic basis, ie the jurors are called from the geographic area in which the court is held.

The number of Irish speakers in the state is comparable to the number of English speakers in a given circuit court catchment area, if they can manage to get an English speaking Jury from such numbers of people, they can get an Irish speaking Jury.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

You do realise that they ask those called if they know the defendant at the start right? It does happen quite often in cases generally (Ireland is a small country) those people are simply not chosen for that case.
The idea that there are not enough Irish speakers for this to be workable is a joke, the circuit court works on a geographic basis, ie the jurors are called from the geographic area in which the court is held.

The number of Irish speakers in the state is comparable to the number of English speakers in a given circuit court catchment area, if they can manage to get an English speaking Jury from such numbers of people, they can get an Irish speaking Jury.

Utter codswallop

Potential-Monke

I think there's a major point being missed in all of this. Lets say he got a Jury of all fluent Irish speakers. Next, we need a Judge who can speak fluent Irish. And a court clerk who can speak fluent Irish. Actually, lets just list them:

- The defendant
- 12 Fluent Irish speakers for the Jury
- The defendants legal representation (plus any helpers)
- The prosecutions legal representation
- The prosecuting member of the Gardaí
- The Inspector/Superintendent who is presenting the case
- Any witnesses, state or otherwise
- The Judge
- Court Clerk

That's a hefty list of people to get who can speak fluent Irish, when it's just easier (and more cost effective) to have an interpreter for the lad who wants to speak Irish and who can speak English fine (presumably - I'd imagine he didn't have an interpreter all the way to the Supreme court with him).

This lad was really only doing this to pervert the course of Justice, and try and push towards a Justice Delayed is Justice Denied situation, or an unfair case against him as no one speaks Irish!

GenieOz

GaelMise wrote: »

So full and uninhibited access to the justice system should only be afforded to those who speak English? Or only to those whos guilt you have not already decided?

Yes, let's just go with that.

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

Can you point out some legal systems where about 95%+ of the population will be excluded to have trials in a language spoken natively by less than 1% of the population?

A jury is supposed to be representative of his peers as much as realistically possible. How can it be representative if all but a tiny percentage of the population cannot be selected?

Here s the problem in your argument. In what way are Irish speakers different to the rest of the population other than they happen to speak Irish?

Its like saying that the jurys that sit on the Cork circut court are not representative of the population because they are all from Cork.

Yes, they are, but what significance does that have beyond where they happen to live?

In this case all jury members would have Irish, but what significance would that have beyond the language they speak?

shruikan2553

GaelMise wrote: »

You do realise that they ask those called if they know the defendant at the start right? It does happen quite often in cases generally (Ireland is a small country) those people are simply not chosen for that case.
The idea that there are not enough Irish speakers for this to be workable is a joke, the circuit court works on a geographic basis, ie the jurors are called from the geographic area in which the court is held.

The number of Irish speakers in the state is comparable to the number of English speakers in a given circuit court catchment area, if they can manage to get an English speaking Jury from such numbers of people, they can get an Irish speaking Jury.

Thats the issue, there is nowhere near the same amount of people that can speak Irish in an area as there are English speakers. If its common to get english speakers than know the people involved what happens when they try to pick up enough Irish speakers? The entire area would have to empty out so that they can maybe grab enough of them that dont know the person from their rural area.

awec

GaelMise wrote: »

Here s the problem in your argument. In what way are Irish speakers different to the rest of the population other than they happen to speak Irish?

Its like saying that the jurys that sit on the Cork circut court are not representative of the population because they are all from Cork.

Yes, they are, but what significance does that have beyond where they happen to live?

In this case all jury members would have Irish, but what significance would that have beyond the language they speak?

So that's a "no" then.

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

Utter codswallop

Would you care to elaborate? Or is it a case of 'its true because I say so'.

Just to make it clear, there are circuit court areas that would have a population of around 60,000 to 100,000.
This is similer to the number of fluent Irish speakers.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Would you care to elaborate? Or is it a case of 'its true because I say so'.

Just to make it clear, there are circuit court areas that would have a population of around 60,000 to 100,000.
This is similer to the number of fluent Irish speakers.

Oh you do read my posts?

Should a Polish/Chinese/Nigerian person be allowed to demand a jury consisting only of people who are fluent in their language and not want a translator?

Aka Ishur

GaelMise wrote: »

Would you care to elaborate? Or is it a case of 'its true because I say so'.

Just to make it clear, there are circuit court areas that would have a population of around 60,000 to 100,000.
This is similer to the number of fluent Irish speakers.

So you are proposing that the jury panel for a road offence in cork could take someone from the Donegal gaeltacht? How does that sound workable to you?

GaelMise

awec wrote: »

So that's a "no" then.

Sorry, I focused on the second part of your post, I take it you conceed that point.

As for the first part of you previous post, not off the top of my head, though you will have to argue why that is significant.

You also seem to think that Jurys are chosen from the population, and as such excluding 95% or whatever is a problem. The fact is that jurys are not chosen from the population, they are actually chosen from a small local subset of the register of electors. In reality every individual case already excludes 95%+ of the population from being a potential juror.

GaelMise

Aka Ishur wrote: »

So you are proposing that the jury panel for a road offence in cork could take someone from the Donegal gaeltacht? How does that sound workable to you?

No, i'm not.
I'm suggesting that such a case should compose a panel of 12 fluent Irish speaking juror's from Cork, and in the extraordanrily unikely event that 12 suitable people cannot be found from amongst the thousands of fluent Irish speakers in Cork, then get them from the thousands of fluent Irish speakers in Waterford, Tipp, Kerry, and Limerick.

Its not fuc*ing rocket science.

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

Oh you do read my posts?

Should a Polish/Chinese/Nigerian person be allowed to demand a jury consisting only of people who are fluent in their language and not want a translator?

If and when any of those languages become official languages of our state then I would expect nothing less.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

If and when any of those languages become official languages of our state then I would expect nothing less.

But if they are citizens of Ireland then surely they would be entitled to the same rights as the person in this case right?

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

But if they are citizens of Ireland then surely they would be entitled to the same rights as the person in this case right?

To be tried through either of the official languages of the state? I can only assume so?

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

To be tried through either of the official languages of the state? I can only assume so?

English is an official language of the state so why can't this man have his case heard in English or if he prefers in Irish via a translator, if it's good enough for others it should be good enough for him right?