Emergency legislation was passed in the Dail last night to close a legal loophole governing kidnapping and false imprisonment. The Interpretation (Amendment) Bill changes an earlier law passed in May this year. The Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act abolished a number of crimes including false imprisonment and kidnapping as common law offences. They became statutory offences instead.
Consequently, claims were successfully made that prosecutions could not be taken on those crimes committed before the new Act was introduced.
They included the Special Criminal Court case concerning the kidnapping of the former banker, Mr Jim Lacey, in 1993.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, introducing the amended legislation also referred to other cases affected by the loophole, including one involving attempted rape and false imprisonment.
The decisions in these cases, he said, "have introduced uncertainty into an important area of law".
He said they could let the superior courts resolve the issue and then bring forward legislation if necessary.
He added that, because of the challenges that continued to be mounted against the legislation, "there is an urgent need to bring certainty into the matter".
The Bill "enables prosecutions to be mounted in relation to clearly criminal actions", he said. It "is a necessary measure to bring certainty into an important area of the criminal law and to avoid severe administrative problems developing in our courts".
Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, expressed surprise at the Minister's decision to introduce the emergency legislation. He believed it would have been better to have had the matter further and conclusively tested by the Courts.
"I feel therefore that the Minister has been wrongly advised."
Ms Liz McManus (DL, Wicklow) expressed concern that the amended legislation might not be constitutional. Criticising the speed with which the Bill was being dealt with she said that if legislation was rushed through "at an inordinate pace" it could create further problems at a later stage.
Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist party, Dublin West) was the only dissenter to the amending legislation and criticised the Minister for not briefing deputies about the amendment. He said it would have cost the government nothing to have a two-week debate on a complicated issue.
Criminal cases which might be affected by the legislation could be postponed, he suggested.