Experts From School of Law & School of Medicine Lead Workshop On Easy-Read Notice Of Rights For Vulnerable Suspects

On Friday, 1 October 2021, Prof. Gautam Gulati from the School of Medicine , and Dr. Alan Cusack from the School of Law, at the University of Limerick convened, and led, a landmark focus group aimed at informing the design of an Easy-Read Notice of Rights Form for vulnerable suspects.

The session was conducted with colleagues at University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Galway and the University of Cambridge and it was attended by national and international experts in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, law, policing and speech and language therapy. Representatives from national disability bodies also attended the Focus Group and, perhaps most importantly, three active members from An Garda Síochána attended the online seminar thereby providing important operational input into the design, layout and content of the proposed new Easy-Read Notice of Rights Form.

Drawing upon the findings of this Focus Group, a revised Easy- Read Notice of Rights will now be prepared. This new document will then be reviewed by persons with lived experience of intellectual disability to get further feedback on its accessibility. It is hoped that the final format of the document with be presented to An Garda Síochána in the coming months.

The development of an Easy-Read Notice of Rights can be viewed as an important step in the direction of meeting Ireland’s obligations under UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Convention on Human Rights. It also ensures that Ireland, through the research activism of the University of Limerick, is progressing #SDG16 – Peace and Justice.