Irish Examiner view: Criminal Justice Act 2023 is as welcome as it is overdue
Una Ring and Eve McDowell at the April 2022 announcement that the Government intended to make stalking and non-fatal strangulation standalone offences. Women such as them helped ensure such provisions were included in the new Criminal Justice Act. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins
The provisions include increasing the maximum sentence for assault causing harm, a common offence in domestic abuse cases as well as in other assaults, from five years to 10 years; widening the scope of the existing harassment offence to include conduct that seriously interferes with a person’s peace and privacy, or causes alarm, distress, or harm; and creating a standalone offence of stalking, with a maximum sentence of up to 10 years.
There is also an increase in the maximum sentence possible for those found guilty of assaulting or threatening to assault a garda or other on-duty emergency workers, which is also welcome, but clearly many of the legislation’s new provisions are aimed at trying to provide more protections for women.
Domestic abuse, harassment, and stalking are offences which affect women in the main, though not exclusively, and it is encouraging to see the focus on these areas in the new legislation.
Harassment and stalking have existed in various forms for many years, for instance, but these offences have both become more insidious since the internet generally and social media specifically gave criminals more options with which to prey upon the vulnerable. It is fitting that the new law focuses on redefining harassment — and widening that definition — while also recognising stalking as an offence in and of itself.
The timing could hardly be more apt. This week, at a meeting of the All-Island Women's Forum in Dundalk, the National Women’s Council warned that violence against women is at “epidemic levels” in Ireland as it stands.
Legislative provisions such as the new act will not banish violence against women, but it at least equips the State with the tools which are necessary to pursue those who perpetrate that violence.
That conflict, and others, was the source of an extraordinary outburst from UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi this week.
As part of the UNHCR annual briefing to the UN Security Council, Mr Grandi said the usual references to a solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine being “elusive” were wrong, adding: “It has not been elusive, it has been repeatedly and deliberately neglected, cast aside as something no longer necessary, almost ridiculed.”
Grandi called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, but he also broadened his canvas to good effect. Pointing out that there are an estimated 114m refugees and displaced people around the world, he listed a variety of other embattled zones, many of which do not feature in headlines, like Gaza.
Lebanon, Armenia, Central Sahel, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, and Sudan are also witnessing brutal conflicts, some of which have been going on for years. Grandi pointed out that in the case of Sudan, atrocities, which first occurred over 20 years ago in Darfur, are now happening again.
In calling on the Security Council to show some leadership, Grandi did not mince his words:
Those politicking and horse-trading at the UN Security Council may or may not be swayed by Grandi’s passion, but there is surely a lesson there for all, in the litany of wars and conflicts he was able to produce to support his argument.
In acknowledging the horrors which are ongoing in Gaza, do we forget the savagery which continues in Darfur and Ukraine? Does our capacity to comprehend the horrors of war have an in-built limit?
Even if it does, we cannot divest ourselves of the empathy we owe other human beings suffering the travails of war, whether that war is in the headlines or not.
The publishers of the Collins Dictionary said ‘AI’ was the word of the year — having consulted widely the publishers found that use of the term had quadrupled this year, with many discussing its pros and cons.
For the pedantic reader it will of course resonate that AI is an abbreviation for artificial intelligence and not a word in and of itself — hence the reference to breaking the rules.
Or is that just want AI wants us all to think?
