Public domestic-violence register will name offenders
The Government has given the go-ahead for the drafting of legislation that would allow those convicted of domestic violence to be named on a public register.
The proposed domestic-violence register of judgments would be managed by the Courts Service.
The General Scheme of the , known as ‘Jennie’s Law’, was published today (21 October).
It has been named in honour of Jennifer Poole, who was murdered by her ex-partner Gavin Murphy in 2021.
The campaign in her name has been led by her brother Jason.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said that victims would have to give their consent before the convicted abuser could be named on the public register.
Consistency on consent
Among other measures, the bill will:
- Strengthen the law on sexual consent,
- Strengthen legislation on preventing and combatting human trafficking,
- Remove dual criminality in respect of certain offences – including forced marriage, and
- Replace references to ‘child pornography’, which is seen as an outdated term, with ‘child sexual abuse material’ in legislation and in legal proceedings.
On sexual consent, the minister said that the legislation would ensure consistency in relation to the consent component across rape offences and sexual-assault offences.
“As the law stands at present, an honest belief in consent – whether that belief is reasonable – is a defence to a charge of rape.
“We have wanted to change that for some time, but we needed to ensure we were not creating issues in sexual-assault cases,” he stated.
“The provisions relating to rape were removed from the earlier bill but will now be progressed alongside provisions on sexual assault, ensuring that any belief in consent must be reasonable, whether this is in relation to a charge of rape or a charge of sexual assault,“ Minister O’Callaghan said.
Dual-criminality change
The bill also plans to remove the requirement for dual criminality for sexual-violence offences such as rape, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and forced abortion and forced sterilisation.
Until now, if such offences were committed abroad by an Irish citizen, they could not be prosecuted by the State unless this behaviour was also a crime in the place where it occurred.
The bill also contains proposals to transpose EU directives on combatting human trafficking and on violence against women.
The draft bill will now be referred to the Oireachtas Justice Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny.