Readers' blog: Cork County Council can’t get away with throwing out accusations
Your report on the intention of Cork County Council to introduce new waste management by-laws states: “Under the new regime, people who can not prove how they are disposing of their waste could face fines of up to €2,500.” (‘Possible prosecutions for illegal dumping in Cork’s Ellis’s Yard’, Irish Examiner, 13/4)
This new regime will gather customer information from collection companies and those not on these lists will be “obliged” to explain what they do with any waste they had/have.
This seems a good approach until one realises that the council has assumed powers which will allow them to criminalise citizens without empirical evidence that the citizen they have targeted actually illegally disposed of waste or even that the waste existed in the first place.
Heretofore, citizens are sanctioned when there is evidence that they have illegally dumped waste. This was done by way of CCTV evidence or the finding of proof that the illegally dumped waste emanated from that person. Now the council can issue a sanction for illegal dumping without the burden of having to prove that the citizen illegally disposed of waste or even that waste existed in the first place.
In more stark terms, Cork County Council can now criminalise a citizen based only on supposition.
I refuse to believe that I am the only person in the country deeply concerned at this very serious erosion of the presumption of innocence principle that is supposed to be the bedrock of our democracy.
Rathedmond
Sligo
