Faithfully Serving the Queen
The case of Seamous Treacy and Barry MacDonald

Billy Mitchell

The objections of Seamous Treacy and Barry MacDonald to taking a pledge to faithfully serve the Queen is an interesting one. If it is politically offensive for both lawyers to take the pledge I assume that it is equally offensive for them to actually serve the Queen by participating in the administration of her laws in Northern Ireland. Their political convictions automatically prevent them from using the term Queen's Counsel and from serving as Crown Counsel, Magistrates or Judges.

Whether one takes an oath to serve the Queen or not, active participation in the administration of British law in Northern Ireland, particularly as Crown Counsel or as a Judge or Magistrate, amounts to an act of service. Abstention seems to me to be the only option for those who do not wish to serve. Are we about to see Catholic lawyers engage in a policy of abstentionism similar to that employed politically by Sinn Fein?

Have Catholic judges and magistrates been less enthusiastic than their Unionist counterparts in punishing those deemed to have infringed British law in Northern Ireland? Have Catholic prosecutors been less diligent than their Unionist colleagues in seeking to convict those deemed to have broken British laws? Have Catholic defence lawyers not been as thick on the ground as Unionist lawyers when it came to participating in the British Diplock Courts and Supergrass Trials? Did they not serve the system well without showing signs of being offended? If they were politically offended by all of this, what was it that salved their consciences?

During the early seventies when some of us were protesting against the iniquitous Diplock Courts a number of loyalists dismissed their legal team and refused to recognise the Courts. Some defence lawyers, including Catholic lawyers, were greatly incensed when their clients accused them of performing like musicians in a brothel. Corrupt and immoral as they may have regarded the Diplock system they were still content to perform for fees which many prisoners regarded as immoral earnings. Participation didn't seem to offend anyone's political beliefs in the slightest.

Government proposals contained in the Queen's Speech to Parliament are set to offend the conscience of many of us who believe in civil liberty. I wonder will they also offend the political consciences of Seamous, Barry and the Bar Association? The government proposes to limit a citizen's right to trial by jury, to extend anti-terrorist legislation to include domestic political campaigning and to punish people who fail to comply with Community Service Orders by denying them access to social security benefits. Jack Straw has even floated the idea that free citizens found to have certain personality traits should be locked up in case they break the law.

The decision as to who is worthy and who is not worthy of a trial by jury will be made by a panel of magistrates who generally come from a particular social and economic class. If they find that an accused citizen is not of "good character" they may deny that person the right to a jury trial. Diplock revisited! Psychiatrists may decide if a citizen should be incarcerated, not for what he or she has done, but for what they might do in the future. Justice will be controlled by people who come from a social and economic class that looks with natural disfavour on defendants and political activists who hail from the so-called underclass and ethnic communities.

Sweeping new "Prevention of Terrorist" laws are being proposed to combat political campaigners and direct action protesters. The legal test will be whether there has been a threat to use, or actual use, of violent action for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause. Should I dare to physically prevent strike-breakers from crossing a picket line I could be charged under special anti-terrorist laws. I can batter my neighbour to within an inch of his life - even kill him - and be treated as an ordinary decent criminal. But if I dare to defend my neighbour's job against scabs I can be treated as a terrorist.

Government proposals to deny social security benefits to offenders who fail to comply with Community Service Orders will simply perpetuate the vicious cycle of deprivation, alienation, violence and crime, and will help to create and to perpetuate a dependency on crime.

These proposals are an affront to civil and religious liberty and to the basic principles of justice. If members of the legal profession in Northern Ireland are really interested in justice and liberty as opposed to merely performing in adversarial courtroom contests, some of them may raise the standard of protest against what the government has planned for us. Will they? Only time will tell.

(First published in the "North Belfast News", January 2000).