The High Court has refused a Galway man’s application for a bilingual jury selected specifically for its ability to understand evidence in both Irish and English without an interpreter.
Peadar Ó Maicín, also charged under the name Peadar Macken, was facing Circuit Court proceedings arising from an alleged incident at Beal an Daingean, Leitir Móir, Co Galway, on May 28, 2008. He was charged with assault causing harm and with producing a broken whiskey bottle in a manner likely unlawfully to intimidate another person during a fight. He denied the allegations.
Mr Ó Maicín, a native Irish speaker raised in Ros Muc, sought judicial review after Circuit Judge Raymond Groarke refused his application for a bilingual jury in May 2009. He argued that he wished to conduct his case through Irish and would be disadvantaged if jurors depended on interpretation rather than hearing his evidence directly.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy rejected that argument. He held that under section 5 of the Juries Act 1976, jurors are drawn by random selection from the electoral register within the relevant geographic jury district. The Minister for Justice may alter the geographic boundaries of jury districts, but that power does not permit jurors to be selected according to language ability.
The judge said restricting the pool by linguistic ability would depart from random selection in the same way as selecting jurors by political affiliation, religion or cultural identity. The court also held that it could not direct the Minister how to exercise the statutory discretion to create jury districts.
The Circuit Court had already indicated that a judge fluent in Irish would hear the case and that evidence would be electronically recorded in the language in which it was given.
The High Court also refused relief concerning Irish-language Court of Criminal Appeal rules, finding the request insufficiently precise and irrelevant to the pending trial. A separate complaint about Irish-language Circuit Court rules had effectively fallen away after those rules were published in Irish. The court refused to prohibit continuation of the indictment.