Posted on 05/29/2006 12:45:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
DUBLIN, Ireland, May 29, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ireland's Supreme Court struck down the nation's statutory rape law as unconstitutional last week, leaving a legal void the Department of Justice is now scrambling to fill.
A provision in the law made sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 15 automatically considered rape, regardless of the circumstances. The Supreme Court ruled the law was unconstitutional on the grounds it did not leave room for a genuine mistake, even if it were proven that a girl had lied about her age, reported the Irish Emigrant this morning.
The ruling resulted from a recent case of a man charged with four counts of statutory rape for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. He was 18 at the time; the girl told him she was 16.
Although the ruling accepted the man's defence, the court did state that "the protection of young girls from engaging in consensual sex is a legitimate end to be pursued by appropriate means," indicating the need for new legislation.
Multiple cases of statutory rape charges before the courts were thrown into question by the ruling, media reported last week. RTÉ news reported Friday on a 38-year old man convicted of the unlawful carnal knowledge of a 12-year-old girl, two years ago, who was expected to challenge his conviction in court this week. The Irish Times reported Saturday on several cases, including a 26-year-old man who was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea of having sex with a 14-year-old girl.
Rape support groups expressed outrage over the ruling, saying it would give a "green light" to child sex offenders. A spokeswoman for the Rape Crisis Network said the new laws could strengthen the protection of children, however, by including young boys in the legislation, a group left largely unprotected by the 1935 law, reported the Emigrant.
New laws closing the temporary legal gap are expected to be in place within two weeks.
Seems he clearly wanted to know if she was legal age, she lied and apparently admitted it in court.
She was one year (or just months) younger than legal in Ireland and claimed to be two years older. Such deceit could be considered a mitigating circumstance where ages are so relatively close. He wasn't 28 or 38 and since he asked of her age he seemed mindful or the law and lacked a necessary criminal intent. Had she told the truth and he gone ahead with the act, I'd be more supportive of being charged.
"new laws could strengthen the protection of children, however, by including young boys in the legislation, a group left largely unprotected by the 1935 law, reported the Emigrant."
The catholic priests in the area must be outraged.
Stop me if I getting into a topic that I should leave alone. But here in the U.S. we've had a very long and terrible series of scandals involving Catholic priests and boys. Has Ireland had similar problems? Hopefully not.
Yeah, just as bad, if not worse.
I'm sorry to hear it. I'd say it's time for the law to protect boys as well as girls.
Sounds like he knew her rather well.
hey...thanx for not hammerin me missing that....
sheesh !
Yep, ridiculous. But that is exactly the situation in Canada, where "I didn't/couldn't know..." is specifically prohibited as a defence in statuatory rape cases. Plus, the age of consent is different for boys and girls.
Man who had sex with 12-yr-old freed
Opposition parties asks why emergency leglisation wasn't drafted in event of the ruling:
Uproar in Dáil following release of man guilty of statutory rape
I can't find any detailed links about this, so I read through Article 40 of Bunreacht na hEireann, trying to find where/how the judgment was derived; I can guess it's because he wasn't allowed to use the fact he wasn't aware of the girls age as defence in court, further more the admission of under age sex is automatically regarded as a crime, irrespective of the circumstances - I guess it was interpreted as not having a fair trial, thus he was detained illegally.
I guess to get arrested and kept in jail in Ireland, you need to refuse to stop smoking in the pubs.
That isn't an exaggeration! The morality is inverted.
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