The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by M.O’M. against a High Court decision quashing a District Judge’s refusal to make orders on three charges dating from 1970 and 1971. The appeal concerned whether the prosecution could continue after the 1993 abolition of the offence of buggery.
The charges were one count of buggery, alleged to have occurred on an unknown date between September and December 1970, and two counts of indecent assault, alleged to have occurred between September 1970 and June 1971. M.O’M. denied the charges. The judgment says the alleged victim was a 13-year-old male boarder at a secondary boarding school in the west of Ireland. It describes M.O’M. as a priest and Dean of Studies there at the time.
At a hearing in September 2007, District Judge Mary Devins questioned whether the charges were valid because the relevant laws had been repealed. After hearing evidence and submissions, she said she was not satisfied that the charges were good in law and made no order on any of them. The Director of Public Prosecutions sought judicial review. The High Court quashed the District Judge’s decision and ordered that the charges be dealt with in the ordinary way. M.O’M. appealed.
The Supreme Court judgment supplied here is that of Fennelly J, delivered on 8 February 2012. He concluded that buggery had been a statutory offence in Ireland from 1634 until its abolition in 1993. On that basis, he said section 21 of the Interpretation Act 1937 preserved the possibility of prosecuting alleged offences committed before repeal. He would affirm the High Court decision and dismiss the appeal. He also said there was no basis for preventing prosecution of the two indecent-assault charges.
Fennelly J’s opinion records that the majority took a different view on whether buggery was a statutory offence when abolished in 1993. He said that, if it was not, he agreed with the Chief Justice and Hardiman J that the 1997 Interpretation (Amendment) Act could not provide a sound basis for criminalising conduct that had ceased to be criminal. The supplied text does not include the majority’s full reasoning or specify the Supreme Court’s operative order beyond identifying Fennelly J’s opinion. It therefore does not establish the final disposition of the appeal.