Plain-clothes Gardai stopping and questioning a non-national

nodolan

Hi all and thanks for reading. I should've asked this question last week but here goes:

My other half was walking home from Sullivan's Quay (Cork) Saturday week ago. He was walking along the river but got lost just after the College of Commerce and ended up on East Fitton Street when two people (male and female) in a car shouted at him.

Not being a good English speaker all he heard was 'we are the police!' so he stopped.

No proof of their ID was offered by them (since he is a non-national I would have expected that the decent thing to do would be to show your warrant card as he didn't know he was entitled to ask to see one) and no law was quoted to him as to why they were stopping him.

The Constitution says that 'No citizen shall be...' - does that mean only Irish citizens have constitutional rights?

They then proceeded to ask him for ID - he produced his Garda National Immigration Bureau card but that wasn't good enough for them and they asked for more ID. They asked him for his name and address, his address in Spain and his address in Bolivia.

They then asked him for his employment record here, in Spain and in Bolivia. They also asked him if he had a criminal record in Spain or in Bolivia (which he hasn't).

The more he cooperated the more antagonized and aggressive they got and at one point shouted at him 'Are you trying to make fools of us?' when he replied to a question about that specific area being for prostitution and if he was aware of that which he wasn't. He also apologised for his bad English which seemed to annoy them even further.

They finished off by more shouting at him and telling him that if they ever caught him in the area at night again he'd be arrested on the spot.

He came home in a state of distress and the next day asked me to help him file a complaint which I did.

We have an appointment today at the Garda station in question and even though I'm aware of other threads here about our rights and Garda powers I'm a little unsure as to how to proceed and more specifically what are his rights as a legit non-national in Ireland. I wasn't there so obviously it's their word against his.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Noel.

Reloc8

If you have an appointment in the Garda Station it sounds to me as if there is some sort of effort to try and resolve this misunderstanding informally. That is a good thing and you should go along and see what they have to say.

If you are not satisfied by this informal process go here http://www.gardaombudsman.ie/ to make a formal complaint.

MagicSean

The legislation in question is Section 12 of the Immigration Act 2004

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2004/en/act/pub/0001/sec0012.html

As you have a pending complaint I dont think it a good idea to go into it any further.

Bosco boy

There's also the possibility that they were not actually gardai, but if they were they should have shown Id, maybe the language barrier also led to some of the confusion. I think the standard reply from people found in a red light area and rambling Round is that they are lost, sometimes it's true sometimes it not, ur appointment should get to the bottom of things

nodolan

Thanks for all your replies.

We met with a senior officer and another liason officer.

We listened to their point of view, gave ours and 'argued' about the bit where we overlapped (where we didn't see eye to eye).

It took about twenty minutes of wrangling and going to and fro before an apology was offered and accepted though no admission of any wrongdoing was made - your perception versus their perception etc.

Another twenty minutes of re-explaining our respective positions and all seemed well with the world.

All in all the other half felt bettter that he had made the complaint and had chosen to have it dealt with locally.

Himself has learnt a lesson in how the Gardaí (some of them) may have a fairly gruff/aggressive attitude (but apparently mean no offence) and the areas he needs to avoid in Cork.

Thanks again to everyone for their time.

xonet

Well done. I am glad your other half stood up for himself. If people do not complain in situations like this, authority quickly becomes abused and abusive to others.