District justice?

This week Vitali Vitaliev visits Dublin's district courts, where he witnesses the grim reality of those charged wth petty crimes

'All rise!" We spring up from hard wooden benches. From behind the door, marked "Private. No Admittance", a black-robed female judge appears. I can hardly see her face in the uncertain blaze of electric lamps, hanging from the ceiling, their bleak and superfluous glow mixing with grey, satin daylight behind the windows to create a permanent semi-darkness.

The pencil box of a courtroom smells of dust, disinfectant and human sweat – a peculiar scent of despair characteristic of prisons, courts and social security offices all over the world. There is nothing in it to please the eye, except perhaps for an "Exit" sign – its one and only reassuring feature.

It is the second day of my "familiarisation" with the workings of Dublin's Metropolitan District Courts, and by now I cannot help the feeling that the whole of humankind consists exclusively of judges, claimants, witnesses and defendants, whose roles are both transitory and interchangeable; that we are all actors in this never-ending and somewhat antiquated real-life drama of crime and punishment.

Approaching the Four Courts, a fine architectural creation of James Gandon, is like entering a different dimension – a peculiar alienation zone, out of which all joy and happiness had been sapped by a squad of JK Rowling's storybook "dementors".

People, heading for the Courts, seem to have left their smiles at home, and the first passers-by I bump into are two hand-cuffed young men, chained to a couple of burly gardai, who drag them towards the Criminal Courts wing of the building. They are followed by a lonely paparazzo, a huge telescopic lens dangling from his hip like a gun.

The oblong District Courts courtyard is semi-enclosed by a concrete fence, topped with barbed wire. From one side, it is blocked by the wall of the adjoining Garda station building, its doors, facing the courtyard, adorned with forbidding notices, one of which says "No Entry" and another – "Go Away".

It is morning, and the courtyard is filled with waiting crowds – the very people, targeted by the no-nonsense "Go Away" sign. Subdued and sullen-faced, they chain-smoke forgetfully, their verbal exchanges reduced to absolute minimum. Even so, I overhear some muffled snippets of conversation – in English and in Russian, the latter with a distinct Ukrainian accent.

What amazes me most, however, is the way the crowd is dressed. Almost everyone – men, women and children – are sporting track-suits of all existing falsified brands, the most popular being counterfeit Adidas. A sallow youngster on crutches is clad in a tracksuit, too!

Do tracksuits constitute a standard court-attending "uniform" in Ireland?

Whatever it is, the courtyard looks like a mysterious open-air gym for grossly unfit people. Or, more aptly, like an exercise yard of a uni-sex low-security jail.

The eyes of many a tracksuit wearer are vacant, as if extinguished. They blend with equally pale, as if discoloured, faces.

I consult a long list of defendants' names on a notice board. About one third of the names originate from different republics of the former USSR – Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia. Reading through the list is like embarking on a vicarious mini-excursion of post-Soviet geography.

I spend several hours wandering from one courtroom to another. What happens in each of them can be best described as a conveyor belt of justice: people entering and leaving at random, secretaries calling out defendants' names (for no reason, I am a bit worried that she will call out mine), judges sitting in state on their podiums – stamping away papers and mumbling something past the microphones on their desks in defiance of multiple strict signs urging them to "Use the Microphones Provided".

I wonder whether all of them are secret members of the US-based International Organisation of Professional Bureaucrats, one of three main mottos of which is "When in Doubt – Mumble"? Or, maybe, they do it deliberately to further intimidate the already intimidated people (many of them – with very poor English) inside the courtrooms?

Despite the judges' semi-coherent whispers, I manage to decipher some of their pronouncements:

"It is a waste of further resources: the defendant is on legal aid!"

"Hands out of your pockets! You are in court!"

"I find your explanation unrealistic. You were simply there looking for trouble!"

"I am not concerned with that! Back here in two weeks time!"

One angry judge, setting the date for a new hearing, whispers emphatically, as if inserting an exclamation mark after each word: "Eighteenth! July! Court! 50!"

Another struggles with a foreign name of a defender: "Do you understand the charges, Mr Na... sim... sam... ba... ba?"

Each courtroom swarms with very young uniformed gardai, some of whom look almost teenage-like – in stark contrast with defendants, who, despite (or possibly because of) their track-suits, all appear prematurely aged and malnourished.

I wander off to Richmond Hospital (a ten minute walk from the Four Courts), where another set of District Courts is located.

The largest room there is crowded to a bursting point. This court seems to be dealing exclusively with the offence of not paying one's TV licence. The judge is working particularly hard and is processing on average one defendant per minute. From the sheer number of the defendants, however, I deduce that non-paying a TV licence fee must be the most popular "crime" in modern Ireland.

To me, the very fact that one does require a TV licence in Ireland comes as a shock, for so far I used to assume that since both RTÉ channels broadcast lengthy and much-too-frequent advertisements, they were run on a commercial basis and did not need to be supported by the public. I was wrong.

Living in the UK and writing for the Guardian, I did a column on British TV licensing about seven years ago. The licence fee there goes to support the BBC – a public broadcaster, showing no commercials and producing the world's best-quality television (and radio). Even so, the issue of TV licensing in Britain has always been controversial.

Some years ago, they used to put the non-payers (mostly poor little old ladies) in jail, with resulting costs for the public far exceeding their unpaid fees. While researching that column, I discovered that the only way to have a £120 annual fee reduced was to provide a medical certificate, classifying you as totally blind, in which case you were entitled to a discount of one pound and fifty-nine pence!

But let's return to the Dublin District Court, dealing with those who failed to produce a valid TV licence in... October 2003. Yes, the overload of cases must be so huge that only now – 14 months later – a slot for them to be heard could be found.

Each of the offenders is "processed" to the same quick pattern. One of the two impassive licensing inspectors present in court reads his report stating date and time of his visit to the defendant's house.

Judge (to defendant): Do you have any reasons for not paying your TV licence?

Defendant (in most cases, a young woman) shrugs her shoulders which can mean both "yes" and "no".

Judge: Are you working?

Defendant: No.

Judge: Do you have children?

Defendant: Yes, six (variants: two, three, seven... One African lady claims she has ten).

Judge: A hundred and fifty euros fine and two months to pay. Next.

Naturally, occasional deviations from this model do occur. In one case, the defendant, a young Polish man with practically no English, insists that he didn't understand what the licensing inspector wanted of him. In a couple of others, people assert that the licence was to be supplied by their ex-spouses and/or landlords, or that they had moved from the house before the license fee was actually due.

None of them, however, manages to avoid the fine. Not even the man who apologises, saying it was an "oversight" on his part, and asks not to issue a conviction, for it can impair his chances of getting a job in the USA, to where he is about to move. "The conviction will have to be issued!" concludes the judge.

Several defendants fail to appear. Their cases are heard in absentia, with resulting fines being twice the "normal" amount.

In just 30 minutes the judge earns a small fortune for the Irish government – literally out of thin air. Or – even more literally – out of a thin TV aerial.

Before lunch break, I witness an extraordinary case of lucky escape. One of the testifying inspectors, drowning under the pile of his typed "summaries" and reports, fails to produce the relevant piece of paper while the defendant – a young Asian man – is waiting in the box. As the inspector keeps rummaging through his files, the judge loses patience:

"In the absence of evidence, the summons is dismissed!" he declares.The fortunate young man disappears from the courtroom like a greased lightning.

The following day I listen to several other cases dealing with drugs, domestic violence, drink driving and so on. The judges handle most of them expertly and without much arrogance. At times, it even feels as if they no longer mumble incoherently past their microphones.

Or, maybe, it is just me getting used to the tricky acoustics of Irish court rooms?

With my own experience of courts largely limited to closed, "telephone-rule" trials in the former Soviet Union (as an investigative journalist, I was often summoned to give evidence), the openness of Irish court proceedings is reassuring. Only once a Garda man asks me: "In what capacity are you making notes in the court room, sir?"

"In writing capacity," I reply in unintended legal-speak.

"Welcome!" says he and smiles.

It is the first smile I see in Dublin's Metropolitan District Courts. This is if not to count the broad ear-to-ear grin of the lucky escapee from the conveyor-like "TV Licence Tribunal".

Well, it is good to know that in Ireland people can still smile (even if not too often) while in court.

"You are heading in the right direction, Mr Joyce!" – a judge reassures a bedraggled unshaven man in the defendant's box.

I spot this unkempt man again as I leave the Courts building several minutes later. He stands in the courtyard smoking, as if hesitant as to where to go.

Having finished his fag, he turns and resolutely walks away from the Courts.

Hopefully, in the "right direction".