Why They Should Not Be Arrested - Pt 8

This post is one of a 10-part series of posts, the rest of which can be seen here.

In this post, I shall address some issues which have been raised by comments made (on this site, Twitter and elsewhere) querying my overall thesis.

Common-Law Crimes

A "common-law crime" is one which was not voted into existence by the legislature. Many things have been recognised to be criminal for thousands of years. For example, murder, rape and theft were all recognised by the police and by the courts as crimes, even before statute law (that is, laws enacted by our elected representatives) defined and refined the details.

It has been suggested by Fintan O'Toole of The Irish Times, for one, that what caused the insolvency of our banks was the commission of common-law crimes by bankers. He refers favourably to what happened in the case of The City of Glasgow Bank, implicitly suggesting that that case showed "just how it should be done" if our justice system would only work as well as did, notoriously, that of 19th century Scotland, oh yeah !

Well, I have seen no evidence that similar behaviour occurred in our own recent disaster, but if it had, the perpetrators could be charged, not with such common-law crimes, but with crimes which have now, like murder, been defined by the legislature.

In any case, the City of Glasgow situation was in hardly any way comparable: only the shareholders lost money.

Finally, I know of no (other) common-law crime which applies to the behaviour of those who are responsible for our banks' failures.

Unjust Enrichment

There is no crime of "unjust enrichment" known to Irish Law. I am not even aware of it being a crime in other jurisdictions.

There is a tort (meaning a civil wrong) of that name. It describes the situation where, for example, you give me a €50 note thinking it to be €20. I do not notice, but may have been "unjustly enriched" by €30. You may be able to sue me for the return of the €30 - good luck with that ! - but there is no question of my being punished for what happened.

It might just be possible that some of those responsible for the banking mess might need to be nervous about this. To be clear, though, they may worry about having to return money received, not about being arrested or imprisoned.

"General Criminality"

This is the most common objection to my thesis, if hardly the most compelling.

What is said is that our "top bankers" were all obviously up to their necks in "blatant criminality", by which it is meant that they disregarded all constraints of law to indulge their greed. I have even been assured, by intelligent people educated to third level, that said bankers knew what they were doing and were determined to ruin their banks and the Irish economy so that their own wealth would be maximised.

Challenged to justify this belief, they will cite the revelations about the behaviour inside Anglo-Irish Bank during 2008, but are unable to explain why, if both Seán FitzPatrick and David Drumm are now bankrupt, wealth maximisation was going on.

I see no evidence of this alleged "widespread criminality". Greed is not a crime.

What happened during 2008 was not a cause of the crash, but a desperate attempt to avoid it.

Recklessness

Almost as common as the last, this concept is mentioned often, and appropriately so, in my opinion.

There is no general crime of recklessness, or even of gross negligence, in Irish Law. (There are road traffic offences which amount to the same thing, but prosecuting for lending "carelessly" "without due care and attention" or "dangerously" under the Road Traffic Acts are not viable options).

Now, Irish law does recognise a crime of "reckless trading" (Companies Acts, section 297A). Prosecutions of this can only take place if the accused was a director of a failed company (meaning one in examinership, or liquidation).

Because of the way in which the failure of the Irish banks has been handled (even Anglo is not a "failed company" in the above sense), technically the crime does not apply. I will discuss this further in the next part of this series of articles. For now, I will say two things about it.

First, I do not believe that the authorities had that legal position in mind when they chose to proceed as they did, but anyone of another mind is welcome to try to change mine.

Secondly, I cannot resist reminding you that I asked for a mandate from the electorate last year to make "reckless lending" a crime in itself, but there was little interest from voters and none from commentators.

Coming Soon

Part 9, in which I (attempt to) answer the question

So, they just get away with it, do they ?

Comments

[criminal records]

For me crime will always be crime and who ever committed crime must be punished by the law. It is important that our government and law officials must protect their people. Protecting in terms of putting up those criminals into jail. A peaceful community is a community without any crime and criminals so that is why i believe that it is right to arrest a person if there is a concrete evidence that he/she committed any crime.

[Fergus O'Rourke]

If "there is a concrete evidence that he/she committed any crime", the proper procedure is to charge the person with the crime, and for a trial to take place during which that "concrete evidence" is tested before a judge & jury. If a conviction follows, and the judge imposes a prison sentence, then so be it.

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