Active justice legislation

Justice legislation priorities

Credit Michael Foley

In the context of the formation of the tri-party coalition and the agreed Programme for Government, across each of the Department of Justice and Equality’s two pillars, Civil Justice and Equality and Criminal Justice, there are a number of legislative priorities.

Within the Department of Justice and Equality’s functional model, each pillar has a several functions, one of which is legislation. As well as drafting primary and secondary legislation, the legislation function is responsible for creating and progressing bills through the Attorney General’s Office and the Oireachtas. Working both on Irish law and the transposition of EU and international law, the legislation function consults with relevant stakeholders and collaborates with other functions (for instance, governance and policy). This ensures that relevant implications are considered at each stage of the legislative process.

Across the pillars, the legislation function is led by assistant secretaries John O’Callaghan, Head of Civil Justice and Equality Legislation and Michael Flahive, Head of Criminal Justice Legislation.

Civil Justice and Equality

The Department has outlined 10 pieces of legislation and legislative reviews which are currently active within the Civil Justice and Equality legislation function and are at varying degrees of preparation or passage through the Oireachtas. Subject to government priorities, these are between one and two years from preparation to enactment. These 10 active pieces are:

1.

2.

3.

4. Defamation Law Review and Amending Bill;

Property Services (Regulation) (Amendment) Bill;

Personal Insolvency Review/Personal Insolvency and Bankruptcy Amending Bill;

Future Reform of Licensing and Regulation of Gambling in Ireland;

5. Gender Pay Gap Information Bill 2019;

6.

7. Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017;

Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Bill 2017;

8. Adoptive Leave and Lactation Breaks;

9. Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2016; and

10. Proposed Irish Nationality and Citizenship Amendment Bill.

Criminal Justice

Meanwhile, within the Criminal Justice and Equality legislation function, there are several immediate priorities which incorporate the transposition of EU instruments, alongside Private Members’ Bills that may be restored and other priority areas. In addition, the Department has identified nine pieces of planned legislation in the medium-tolong-term.

One piece of legislation already enacted under the new Government is the Criminal Justice (Enforcement Powers) (Covid-19) Act 2020, which was signed into law in September 2020. The Act makes “exceptional provision, in the public interest and having regard to the manifest and grave risk to human life and public health posed by the spread of the disease known as Covid-19 and in order to mitigate, where practicable, the effect of the spread of that disease”.

Transposition of EU instruments

Each EU measure includes a date by which it must be implemented. This includes transposition into national law. Member states are then required to formally notify the European Commission when a measure has been given effect within their jurisdiction. Failure to implement the measure, transpose properly or to notify are grounds upon which the Commission can undertake infringement

proceedings. In such circumstances, member states may be subject to significant financial penalty and suffer reputational damage.

In Ireland, the Department of Justice and Equality has 18 live infringements. Bills required to rectify these infringements include:

Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) Bill 2020;

Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2019;

Criminal Justice (Counterfeiting) Bill 2020;

Criminal Justice (Mutual Recognition of Decision on Supervision Measures) Bill 2019; and

Criminal Justice (Mutual Recognition of Custodial Sentences) Bill 2020.

Private Members’ Bills

Upon the dissolution of the Dáil, prior to a general election, bills which are in the process of enactment will lapse. Within the subsequent Dáil, outstanding bills can either be restored to the Order Paper or allowed to lapse. Bills which enjoy cross-party support are more likely to be restored. The Department of Justice has identified three Private Members’ Bills which may be subject to restoration as per their inclusion in the Programme for Government.

1. Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh’s Perjury and Related Offences Bill 2018: The Bill completed its passage through the Seanad in June 2019. A money message was issued by the then government and it completed the second stage in the Dáil in December 2019. The Bill was subsequently adopted as a Government Bill by the previous government.

2. Deputy Brendan Howlin’s Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill 2017: In 2018, the then government agreed to support and amend the Bill and committee stage amendments are near completion for government approval.

3. Senator Lynn Ruane’s Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018: The Bill was introduced to the Seanad in December 2018 and passed the Seanad committee stage in November 2019.

Priority areas

The Department has also identified several additional criminal justice priorities, of which the following are included in the Programme for Government.

Smuggling of Persons Bill;

hate speech and hate crime legislation;

Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture (OPCAT);

Police Powers Bill; and

Criminal Procedure Bill.

In addition, the Review of protections for vulnerable witnesses in the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences (O’Malley Review) was also published in August 2020. Appointed in August 2018 and chaired by Tom O’Malley, the Working Group was tasked to “review and report upon the protections available for vulnerable witnesses in the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences” in the wake of the Belfast Rape Trial.

The 50 recommendations made by the Working Group are intended to ensure that “victims of sexual crime have access to information and advice from the time at which the offence was committed, that they will be kept informed of the progress of investigation, that they will be facilitated in giving their best evidence if called as witnesses and that they will be treated with respect and dignity throughout the entire process”.

Helen McEntee welcome the publication of the report, stating: “Developing an ambitious implementation plan is a priority for me as Minister for Justice.” Among the actions to be immediately prioritised is the drafting of legislation to provide for preliminary hearings to help avoid delay in sexual offences cases.

Planned legislation

The Department of Justice and Equality has also listed nine medium-to-longterm criminal justice legislation priorities. 2.

3.

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5.

6.

7.

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9. Sanctions) Bill: While the general scheme of a Bill was approved in 2014, it has not been prioritised for drafting. It will provide “a modern statement” of the law governing community sanctions and the role of the Probation Service.

Criminal Justice (Passenger Name Records) Bill: The Bill is intended to comply with an EU Council commitment to extend an EU directive relating to external flights into the EU to EU internal flights.

Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Bill: The Bill will give effect to a 2017 EU directive aimed at combatting the ‘foreign terrorist fighter phenomenon’. A draft general scheme is being prepared.

Cybercrime Bill: The Bill will give effect to outstanding elements of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention) enabling Ireland to ratify the 2001 Convention.

European Arrest Warrant Act (Amendment) Bill: The Bill will amend the EAW Act and extradition legislation to improve its practical application.

Explosives Bill: The Bill will repeal and replace the Explosives Act 1875 with a modern statutory framework for the control, manufacture, storage, importation, transport and supply of explosives.

International Criminal Court (Amendment) Bill: The Bill give effect to the two Kampala amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court made in 2010, including a definition of the crime of aggression.

Sex Offenders (Amendment) Bill: The Bill will update the Sex Offenders Act 2001 following the 2010 review into the management of sex offenders.

Transfer of Sentenced Persons (Amendment) Bill: The Bill will give effect to a 2016 Supreme Court judgement, amending the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Act 1995. The general scheme was approved by government in January 2019 and is currently with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (OPC).

Unlocking the value in public services data

Enda Cusack, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Ireland Services Leader, outlines how audio and video technologies have helped solve the challenges of two large public services in the form of the Irish Prison Service and the UK Police Constabulary.

Case study: UK Police Audio insights driving effciency

A constabulary in the North West of England engaged HPE Pointnext Services to help the police gain insight into emergency and non-emergency calls. By collaborating with HPE and partner Intelligent Voice to build a speech-to-text analytics solution based on machine learning, the Constabulary gained valuable statistical insights into all calls, helping the police improve effciency and effectiveness in serving the public.

Every one of the 1.2 million calls received by the Constabulary each year is recorded, but only those calls for which the police take action are formally logged. All others— about 600,000 calls per year—are unlogged because no action was taken by the police. These inaction calls are referred to as ‘failure demand’, and consequently there was no way for the police to know the nature of all those calls, or if they were handled correctly. Seeking to gain more insights into the unlogged calls, the Constabulary reached out to HPE Pointnext Services.

HPE brought in technology experts from their Centre of Excellence in Europe and did a lot of listening to understand the Constabulary’s problem, data environment, and objectives. Pointnext Services assembled a project team comprised of computing engineers, data scientists, and speechto-text experts from software partner Intelligent Voice. The team built a prototype voice analytics solution, using a sample of archived audio and worked with the Constabulary team to defne key words and phrases that the software could listen for and extract to create categories. With the data extracted from the audio fles, Pointnext Services built a dashboard for the Constabulary, combining approximately 20 call categories with metadata such as the time and day of each call, duration, and operator ID. After the data was cleansed, it was revealed that 60 per cent of nonemergency calls were unlogged, accounting for 40 per cent of overall contact centre workload. The data also showed a spike in non-emergency calls each night at 10 pm. Further research showed 3 per cent of demand related to mental health cases, consuming about 5 per cent of call centre time. Armed with these insights, the Constabulary are now able to explore alternative contact options to reduce non-emergency demand. Last year the Constabulary was graded outstanding in effciency by the UK Inspectorate of Constabulary, particularly around their ability to understand demand and utilise funding to provide the right resources to deliver service to the public.

Data is now being created in more places than ever and in amounts bigger than previously conceived. This explosion of data is bringing with it a mountain of challenges, but also a wealth of opportunities. With the right tools, analysis of this data can provide insights to drive positive outcomes. Harnessing AI and big data analysis can help create efficiencies, drive competitiveness, attain new customers, discover new sources of revenue, and find new business models. Organisations who don’t take this opportunity may get left behind.

Public services are today recording and storing an ever-increasing volume of data for regulatory and other business reasons from many different sources, including audio data from telephony and video data from surveillance. This data has the potential to unlock knowledge that can improve service quality, resource management, reduce risk, provide safer environments, and more effectively manage increased demand.

Audio and video technologies are ready to help public services start using their voice and video data to transform operations and rise to the challenges ahead.

Next steps

Public sector organisations deliver essential citizen-based services across Ireland. The challenges faced by these organisations are the challenges faced by the world, they are social, financial, unpredictable, fast-changing, and highly demanding.

These services must keep adapting and growing their capabilities in line with increased demand to tackle new problems. Organisations are already collecting the data they need. By employing intelligent technologies, they can put that data to work and extract the value within, learning more about user needs, their own performance, where resources are being wasted, and how to protect against risk.

Data processing solutions are increasingly accessible. They run in hybrid cloud environments. Organisations do not need to design or run these environments alone, but can deploy flexible, managed, pay-as-youuse solutions by partnering with experts such as HPE.

By talking to experts, organisations can assess opportunities available to them and access the best technologies on which to build the next generation of public services.

Case study: Irish Prison Service A High-defnition surveillance video to ensure the safety of staff and prisoners

Video surveillance is fundamental to ensure the safety and security of prisoners and staff across Ireland’s 12 prison facilities. The Irish Prison Service operates approximately 5,000 cameras continuously recording the movement and actions of everyone in the facilities, and any incidents captured on video serve as crucial evidence for investigating an incident.

The prison service had been storing incident video on a traditional storage array since 2008; however, it had never been deleted. The service lacked the visibility and a technical process for securely and systematically deleting video, and over so many years, the storage array was running out of capacity. Moreover, the prison service had upgraded its surveillance infrastructure with new high-defnition cameras to enhance the visual quality and intelligence of footage to further improve the safety and security of its facilities. That meant larger video fles, and even more storage demands. George Jackson, Head of Information and Communication Technology for the Irish Prison Service, says: “We clearly needed to upgrade our storage infrastructure with a solution that was more scalable, but also provide a method of deleting video to keep our storage levels more manageable from both a capacity and cost perspective.” Jackson and his team evaluated a number of possible solutions, ultimately selecting one proposed by HPE. The HPE solution included local storage using CTERA running on HPE ProLiant DL380 Servers to capture video 24x7 at each prison facility, and long-term off-site storage built on HPE Apollo 4000 systems and Scality RING to securely retain video of incidents.

Jackson notes: “HPE came to us with an end-to-end solution, which met all of our needs. It provides a level of storage that’s quite large and allows plenty of room for expansion. Also importantly, it gives us the ability to look at the data, determine if it’s still needed or not for an open investigation of the incident, and delete it in a manageable way after four years and one day.” Storing sensitive video data over a long period requires the utmost in security. However, Jackson and his team also needed a solution that’s easy to manage and enables video data to be deleted when appropriate. HPE and Scality deliver on all counts. Security, reliability, effciency, and scalability are essential in a storage solution preserving video data essential to ensuring the safety and security of prison staff and inmates. Jackson underscores this point, saying: “Video data has a huge impact on the safety and security of our staff and prisoners. People’s lives are at stake in extreme cases. Therefore, it’s hugely important that there are safeguards around how the data is stored and secured. HPE and Scality provide us with assurance that those safeguards are in place and that they will work.” Jackson concludes: “Prisons can be diffcult environments, so any technology we use must work. We’ve had a very good relationship with HPE for many years and have confdence in the solution HPE and Scality have brought. It does what it says on the tin. That’s a huge thing for us. If there is an incident, it’s highly important that the solution works and is reliable.”

To find out more contact: Enda Cusack Hewlett Packard Enterprise T: 00 353 872 361 780 E: enda.cusack@hpe.com W: www.hpe.com/ie/en/solutions/public-sector-industries.html