WE need to be very careful. During the 1970s, under the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, a violent and nasty culture developed within sections of the Gardaí Síochana. People will remember some if not all of the exploits of the Heavy Gang: these fine custodians of the law routinely bullied, beat and intimidated suspects into making confessions. Or often, if they couldn't extract a confession, they beat them anyway.

These police officers took this kind of perverted liberty with the course of

justice because they felt that they would get away with it.

And why did they feel that? Because the government that was in power at the time was understood to be strong on law and order. The feeling was that they

would support the cops all the way in their drive to establish the so-called rule of law - even if the police had to bend a few laws, or even break them, along the way.

The kind of culture which developed within the police in Ireland at the time does not develop in a vacuum. Individual gardaí were, of course, fully responsible for their own actions. But the government, and the Minister for Justice of the time, undoubtedly contributed to a climate in which the gardaí involved felt that the system was on their side, and would back them. Under a different government - one which made a commitment to civil liberties a calling card, for example - the excesses which tarnished forever the reputation of the force almost certainly would never have happened.

The present government is in danger of allowing a similar cancer to develop. The current Minister for Justice is big on law and order. Quite clearly, gardaí will have got the message that he wants results - or he wants, at least, the kind of activity that suggests that he is getting results. And what does that mean, your honour? Too often it means cops behaving badly. It means special powers being used indiscriminately. It means searches that aren't justified. And it means arrests that smack of bullying and intimidation.

Every garda in the country must be well aware by now of the "tough measures" which the Minister for Justice has been pursuing, in order to deal with what he sees as the "problem" of immigration. Some of the gardaí have been deployed themselves in pursuing the policy of stopping and questioning "non-nationals" - or to put it more bluntly, people of a skin colour, usually black, that obviously differentiates them from the majority of Irish. It comes as no surprise in the circumstances to read reports of a complaint from a man from the Congo about the timing, manner and legality of a search that was carried out by gardaí on his house. Now not every complaint which is lodged ultimately stands up to scrutiny - but if a search was carried out by four gardaí at 2am, on the basis of a warrant that did not contain the name of the individual whose house was being searched and there was violence involved in some way, then I think we should begin to look very closely at what is being done on our behalf by the forces of law and order in general.

It isn't just in Dublin, and it isn't just in relation to immigrants that the signs are worrying. Hot Press has been investigating the way in which gardaí around the country have been exercising their powers under the Combating the Misuse of Drugs Act, and a full report will be published in the next edition of the paper. This little-discussed piece of legislation gives enormous powers to the gardaí in relation to the confiscation of property, among other things. Being kind, the assumption may have been that it would be applied sensitively and sparingly. However, it is now being used in a way which suggests that the gardaí are empowered to act as musical censors, no less. Sound systems have been confiscated. Businesses have been put at risk. And all this at the whim of a particular individual cop. This is what's possible under the legislation - and it's happening.

Observing developments over the past few years in the area of justice legislation, the increasing powers of the police and sentencing policy in the courts has been deeply disturbing. It is as if no one in government gives a hoot anymore about civil liberties. It is as if no one cares about human rights.

The most obvious abuses occurred in the trial of Patrick Holland for the possession of cannabis. In the first instance, Holland should not have been tried before the Special Criminal Court for what quite clearly was not a terrorist offence. Furthermore, evidence linking him to another crime for which he had not been charged - the murder of Veronica Guerin - should not have been permitted. Nor should newspapers have been allowed to refer to him during the trial as "the man suspected of murdering Veronica Guerin". A conviction was secured, extraordinarily, on the uncorroborated evidence of another criminal, Charles Bowden. And finally, the 20 year sentence is entirely disproportionate to the offence of which he was - rightly or wrongly - convicted.

Of course there is no suggested wrongdoing on the part of any individual here. Rather, what this reflects is a climate in which perspectives have been skewed.

The State will get their man, any way they can. That was the climate in the 1970s when the Heavy Gang flourished. There's plenty of evidence that we're heading back to those dark days - rapidly.

• Niall Stokes

Editor