Amongst the many pieces of legislation to come into force on January 1, 2010 is the Defamation Act 2009 in Ireland. The Irish Constitution at article 40.6.1 calls for blasphemy to be a crime “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.” Conveniently enough; however, until January 1, 2010 there has not been a legal definition of what constitutes blasphemy in Ireland. So blasphemers in Ireland have been gotten off until now, kind of like how I’ve never had to shovel the highways here in Nova Scotia.
It seems that Ireland's justice minister felt that he couldn't abide this contradiction and made changes that will enable one to now officially determine what is blasphemy in Ireland, as of January 1, 2010, the Defamation Act 2009, s.36 defines blashphemy thusly,
36 (1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if—
(a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and
(b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.
Speaking of outrage, this new law has caused some, both within Ireland and internationally, as the new law is being seen as limitation of free speech. As usually happens these days, a Facebook group has popped up, and demonstrations have ensued. This includes Aethiest Ireland posting 25 blasphemous quotes from some well known figures in the history of the planet.
So that made me wonder about blasphemy in Canada and sure enough s. 296 of the Criminal Code has it covered, Blasphemous Libel. "296. (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years." However, one must note that Martin’s Criminal Code notes in it’s synopsis of the section that, “This rather archaic section, if used, would in all likelihood, be challenged under the Charter.” Where is a Law Reform Commission when you need one?
I can’t help but wonder what Father Ted would say?
Anyone interested in reading further about Canada's blasphemy law should definitely check out Jeremy Patrick's excellent paper Not Dead, Just Sleeping: Canada's Prohibition on Blasphemous Libel as a Case Study in Obsolete Legislation, which is available here.
Indeed Bob – we've been down that road before.
You see I did a search of Slaw to see if anyone had posted on this prior to mine but I searched for "Ireland" where Simon did not use that word in his post he used "Irish" which is an excellent occasion to bring up the fallacy of placing too much faith in keyword searching. Nevertheless, it is timely.
The introduction of the new offence of blasphemy in Irish law is a remarkable episode.
The Minister for Justice professed reluctance to introduce the law but claimed he had no option to as the Constitution requires it. There are a range of constitutional issues in need of urgent legislative attention in Ireland, as often highlighted by the judiciary, covering important issues like abortion and childrens' rights. The Government feels no imperative to tackle these areas.
The only alternative, claims the Minister, is a referendum to remove Article 40.6.1 from the Constitution, which the Minister says would be too expensive and not justified (what price democracy?). There is likely, however, to be at least one constitutional referendum in 2010 but there has been no mention of adding the removal of blasphemy to the ballot.