Sir, – I am not an evangelical Christian but justice provokes me to point out that in a civilised society punishment should be proportionate to the offence.
Enoch Burke has been in Mountjoy prison for three months already. The term of imprisonment imposed on him for contempt of court is of indefinite duration.
Such uncertainty of time to be spent in incarceration is, psychologically at the very least, cruel and unusual.
Subject to rare exceptions, a sentence of imprisonment for contempt should be of finite duration, and thereafter if the person continues to breach the court order, they could be brought before the court and penalised again.
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Such a procedure would certainly make sense in the case of Enoch Burke. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT SHEEHAN,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
