The Minister for Justice has said the Supreme Court judgment on statutory rape vindicates his approach to the issue. "I am quite satisfied that what I did as Minister was correct and honest," Michael McDowell said on RTÉ's Morning Ireland radio programme yesterday.
The Minister said he felt vindicated and rejected calls for his resignation. "I don't regret anything I did as Minister," he said. "I do regret that there was a human error in the Attorney General's office," he added, which had led to himself and Attorney General Rory Brady being blindsided.
The error was not due to laziness or any cover-up, "it was one of these things that happens".
Mr McDowell was speaking following Monday's Supreme Court ruling that men who had been convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge of girls under 15 would not be able to seek release. That has effectively closed a loophole that would have allowed child rapists to walk free. The court was handing down its reasons for ordering the rearrest of a man (41) who had served 18 months of a three-year sentence for having sex with a 12-year-old girl. It came after the court ruled in a different case that the law was unconstitutional.
The Minister said once the hysteria died, he would be seen "to have acted competently and in the best interests of victims". He criticised Opposition calls for emergency laws to be introduced without measured consideration.
Forty-eight hours after the original Supreme Court decision, he said he was working on new legislation, but that he needed time to get it right and there was no black hole in the law. "That was all swept aside in the hysteria," he added.
Mr McDowell also said the Government would look at legislation to prevent young victims becoming exhibits or cross-examined in court. The Health Service Executive was preparing a report to see if it was possible to take depositions from children on tape, so that they could be used later.
