Ireland outlaws blasphemy

July 24, 2009, 1:09 pm
Ireland Outlaws Blasphemy
By Robert Mackey
NY Times

An illustration of how tricky it can be to enforce blasphemy laws.

After some hesitation, Ireland’s president, Mary McAleese, signed into law on Thursday a controversial new measure which makes it a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $35,000, to publish or utter blasphemous statements in the Irish Republic.

As The Irish Times explained in April, the new law was introduced into parliament by the justice minister, Dermot Ahern, after someone noticed that while the country’s constitution clearly calls blasphemy a criminal act, Irish legislators had failed to give the nation’s police force the legal means to hold blasphemers to account.

Indeed, Article 40 of the Irish Constitution, which also guarantees freedom of speech, states:

The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

As of Thursday, Ireland now has such a law on the books. Even before the law was signed, a group of Irish atheists began a campaign “for the repeal of this anachronistic and dangerous blasphemy law, and for a referendum to remove the blasphemy reference from the Irish Constitution.” The group’s first step will be to intentionally break the law by publishing a blasphemous statement and defending their right to blaspheme in court.

Michael Nugent, a comic writer and co-founder of Atheist Ireland, called the new law “both silly and dangerous” in an opinion piece published by The Irish Times this month. According to Mr. Nugent:

It is silly because it revives a medieval religious crime in a modern pluralist republic. And it is dangerous because it incentivises religious outrage, by making it the first trigger for defining blasphemy.

The problematic behaviour here is the outrage, not the expression of different beliefs. Instead of incentivising outrage, we should be educating people to respond in a more healthy manner than outrage when somebody expresses a belief that they find insulting.

The Irish atheists have also proposed amending Ireland’s constitution to remove other references to religious belief, including those deeply embedded in the very first words of its preamble, which begins:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Eire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ [...]

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

While Irish Catholics will no doubt oppose moves to make such sweeping changes to the constitution, one of the curious features of the debate over the new blasphemy law is that, as Padraig Reidy pointed out in The Guardian, there seems to be almost no public support for it among religious leaders in the country. As one reader wrote to The Irish Times last week:

I have yet to find a single religious person who supports the blasphemy law. Most seem to regard it as placing unacceptable limitations on personal freedom and conscience. Many also recognise that, ironically, the law represents a deeply impoverished view of God, whose dignity and goodness cannot be lessened by any words of ours.

McAleese signs Bills into law
IRISH TIMES REPORTERS
Thu, Jul 23, 2009

President Mary McAleese has this morning signed the Defamation Bill 2006 and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 into law.

Last night, the President met 19 of the 22 members of the Council of State for nearly three hours to discuss whether to refer two Bills to the Supreme Court. The meeting began shortly after 6pm and broke up shortly before 10pm.

Both Bills were passed by the houses of the Oireachtas earlier this month.

Under Article 26 of the Constitution, the President may, after consultations with the Council of State, send any Bill to the highest court for a ruling on whether all or parts of it are “repugnant” to the Constitution.

The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009, which allows for the greater use of non-jury trials in suspected gangland criminal cases, was passed by the Dáil earlier this month.The Defamation Bill updates Ireland’s defamation law, aims to encourage quicker apologies from publishers and renews the offence of blasphemy provided for under 1960s legislation.

Both Bills have caused controversy, with more than 130 lawyers writing a public letter demanding the Criminal Justice Bill be withdrawn, claiming Ireland would be shamed by it in the eyes of the international community.

The Defamation Bill, which reforms the State’s libel laws, provoked an outcry over its inclusion of a charge of blasphemous libel.

It was the fourth time in her 12 years in office that Mrs McAleese has called in the Council of State over concerns about proposed laws.

On one occasion, the President - herself a distinguished lawyer - refused to sign the Health (Amendment) Bill into law in 2002 after the Supreme Court found parts of it were unconstitutional.

On two occasions she decided to sign contested Bills after consultation and on the other occasion she signed the Bill into law after the Supreme Court ruled it was constitutional.

Bills must be signed by the President after going through both the Dáil and Seanad before they become law.

The council’s membership includes Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, Chief Justice John Murray and president of the High Court Richard Johnson. It also includes Attorney General Paul Gallagher, Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue and the Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann, Senator Pat Moylan.

Former president Mary Robinson and former taoisigh Liam Cosgrave, Garret FitzGerald, Albert Reynolds, John Bruton and Bertie Ahern, along with former chief justices Thomas Finlay and Ronan Keane, are also members.