Reasonable
people will read this account of what is happening
to Michael Mc Kevitt with a mixture of sadness and
anger. People who value good legal systems and appreciate
the courage of those who struggled to create them
will read it with deep disappointment as well.
The
treatment and trial of Michael Mc Kevitt will outrage
all of them. Some of us who attended the Green St.
court any time during the hearing of his trial will
always remember the grip of cold fear we felt at
how similar this trial was to what we had read about
years ago, the show trials of the dictatorships.
Bringing
in a witness who admitted he was motivated by money,
opening the court to free passage of police and
government agents, the complacence of judges and
state lawyers faced the clear presumption that the
safety of the state is more important than justice
for the individual. We had heard it all before.
In the past however, news media and church and universities
and all kinds of people had condemned what was happening
in those countries which they described as under
dictatorship or communist rule. Now we were witnessing
in our own people’s courts the misuse of a
system which we believed was so superior, so basically
just, so presided over by people of such integrity
that it would always be found better to set the
guilty free than to convict even one innocent. This
trial has been one of the most frightening and revealing
of the past forty years in Ireland’s courts
north and south.
The
case of Michael Mc Kevitt must go to the European
courts and when it does our fellow Europeans may
well be shocked. We who are already shocked need
not feel helpless. Michael Mc Kevitt and his family
need our help and that help should be given for
the sake of justice for all of us. In no circumstances
must we allow political needs to dictate how our
courts will work. And if there is one prisoner unfairly
treated then every one of us should feel honoured
to make justice rather than political opinion prevail.
If any prisoner needs help we are bound and privileged
to give it.
Please
read this document. Please do what you can to make
clear that the safety of the state can never be
served by the suffering of even one of its citizens.
The
Framing of Michael McKevitt
The
Blanket is serialising the booklet, starting this
week.
