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The government will act quickly to allow the child killer to be reappointed, said Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Since a landmark ruling in the Court of Appeals last October, child murderers cannot be named, but the ruling has also placed an order to gag the families of such victims and have demanded action to allow them to speak again.
If the ruling had been in effect 12 months earlier, the media would not have been able to report the name of the schoolgirl Ana Kriegel.
In recent days, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has reiterated the Government’s commitment to address the dilemma raised by the court’s ruling.
“It will be early next year [2021] that we will be in a position to do so. I know the attorney general is working on that with the Minister of Justice. You have to change it and we will. The specific nature of how we do it, we’ll have to wait to see the detail of that, ”he said.
“I think it’s important in terms of, I believe in transparency on issues like that,” he said.
On October 29, Judge George Birmingham rendered a ruling in the Court of Appeal that gave a strict interpretation of certain information restrictions established by the 2001 Children’s Act.
In his view, Judge Birmingham’s ruling focused on section 252 of the Act, which created mandatory reporting restrictions when the trial relates to “a crime against a child or when a child is a witness in any of those proceedings. “.
In such circumstances, reporters are automatically and expressly prohibited from identifying “the child’s name, address, or school” or any details that could identify them.
Naturally, the media are also prohibited from publishing images that could identify the child victim or witness.
All of this has been established for a long time, and all court reporters know the rules well.
But in late October, Judge Birmingham found that Section 252 has a much broader application: it ruled that the reporting restrictions also apply in circumstances where the child has died or turned 18.
When questioned by Jim O’Callaghan of Fianna Fáil, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said her department officials are examining options to address the main concerns arising from that ruling.
“I am fully committed to finding the most appropriate means to advance the changes necessary to rectify the situation as quickly as possible, regardless of whether there is an appeal or not,” he said.
Any proposed changes to the Children’s Law will have to be consistent with the key principles of that law, which of course safeguards the best interests of the child, he added.
Mr. O’Callaghan said that Section 252 of the Juvenile Law was intended to protect the privacy of children who were victims of crime, but a dead child was never intended to be “anonymized.”
“If a child is murdered or illegally killed, it is wrong that, in prosecuting a person for the death of that child, the public does not get the name of the accused person,” he said.
Independent Senator Michael McDowell also proposed a similar amendment.
The ban on naming victims of child murders has been criticized in a statement to this newspaper by a mother of two children who were murdered by her husband. The husband took his own life immediately after the murders several years ago.
Talking with him O’Callaghan said he hopes this law change can occur in the coming months.
“Having discussed the matter with the minister before Christmas, I know that the minister agrees that the law must be changed quickly.”
“The minister informed me that officials in her department are working on legislation to amend the Juvenile Law and are using a draft prepared by Michael McDowell and myself for that purpose,” he added.
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