Justice of the Peace

Corsendonk

Peace Commissioner

Just a few questions on Peace Commissioner?

How do people become Peace Commissioner?

What are the Peace Commissioner duties?

Can the office be removed from an individual if they engage in political protests, electioneering or acts of civil unrest?

Basically must the Peace Commissioner remain neutral in the community they work in.

Reloc8

There's no such thing as a Justice of the Peace in this country, since 1923.

Corsendonk

Ok replace Justice of the Peace with Peace Commissioner

Reloc8

This is accurate http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/civil_law/peace_commissioners.html

coylemj

Let me give you the situation that obtained up to about 20 years ago. A person could ask the Minister for Justice to be appointed a Peace Commissioner and typically the people who were so appointed were political friends of the ruling political party of the day. It was considered a bit of an honour and a status symbol, especially in small town Ireland and you wrote 'P.C.' after your name just in case people weren't aware of your status.

I recall as a kid being asked to bring some document to a local PC to get him to countersign it, it might have been a HP agreement for our first colour TV!

If the Gardai arrested someone for a crime and needed them remanded in custody to Mountjoy, outside of normal court hours they could convene a 'special court' presided over by a PC and the PC could remand the suspect in custody to Mountjoy with the stipulation that they be thereafter brought to the next sitting of the District Court for that court district.

However at some stage the holding of 'special courts' was either found to be unconstitutional or the DPP told the Gardai to stop using them and from then on the Gardai had to rouse the local District Justice out of bed to hold a special sitting of the District Court to remand the suspect into custody.

Nowadays I'm not sure what role the PCs have. I think they can sign statutory declarations where for example a Garda is promoted to Sergeant and is required to retake the oath of attestation (or whatever it's called), he or she can do this in the presence of a PC who will then countersign the document.

I don't believe the Gardai use PCs any more to sign search warrants either so typically they don't get called upon to do much nowadays.

tom traubert

coylemj wrote: »

I don't believe the Gardai use PCs any more to sign search warrants either so typically they don't get called upon to do much nowadays.

I believe Gardaí avoid using a P.C. when applying for search warrants except in cases where there's no alternative.

Gardaí do have the statutory declaration to make having served summonses though, and will typically delare to a P.C. who will countersign.

Our man in Havana

Peace Commissioners mostly only used to witness signatures on service declarations for summonses. They are also useful for signing certain CRO documents where someone does not wish to use a solicitor.