Plans to overhaul the whole criminal law system and bring it into a unified criminal code have been approved by the Government, The Irish Times has learned. Many old laws will be abolished in the process.
A statutory body to oversee codifying all criminal law into a coherent whole will be proposed to the next Dáil session by the Minister for Justice.
The Minister has asked Prof Finbar McAuley, professor of law in UCD and a member of the Law Reform Commission, to chair the Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee.
The new committee will be provided for in a new section of the Criminal Justice Bill, the main sections of which have already been introduced in the Oireachtas, Mr McDowell told The Irish Times.
Its members will be drawn from State bodies, legal practice and the academic legal community, according to Mr McDowell. It will be set up on a non-statutory basis in the short term, so that the work can start immediately.
Mr McDowell said he was considering a new means of providing support for the new committee by collaborating with a third-level institution.
The proposal to set up such a group on a statutory basis was the main recommendation of an expert group on the codification of the criminal law, chaired by Prof McAuley.
Mr McDowell received its report before Christmas. The examination of the codification of the criminal law was part of the Programme for Government.
Welcoming its publication, the Minister said: "The publication of the report paves the way for the transformation of our criminal law into a comprehensive body of knowledge that meets the often-cited codification objectives of making the law more accessible, comprehensible, consistent and certain."
The criminal law at the moment consists of a wide variety of statutes and common law prohibitions that have evolved over time.
According to the report, this has resulted in "serious problems posed by the haphazard, unsystematic and disorganised state of the sources of criminal law".
The expert group began work in January 2003 and met fortnightly for a year. It considered whether codification was desirable, concluded that it was and then considered what form of codification should be adopted.
The report recommended a pragmatic approach, incorporating recently enacted legislation while developing new legislation in other areas, such as homicide. A report on homicide is currently being prepared by the Law Reform Commission.
The codification report also recognised that sentencing and criminal procedure should be outside the criminal law code, possibly having their own codes.
A substantial amount of criminal law derives from the common, or judge-made, law tradition, and the report stressed the importance of preserving judicial discretion and flexibility while pressing on with codification.
Codification would mean that eventually all criminal law would be based on statutes adopted by the legislature. This would be developed on a phased basis.
When set up, the statutory committee will oversee the codification process and ultimately ensure its ongoing maintenance and internal logic.
Prof McAuley warmly welcomed the Minister's commitment to implement the main recommendation in the report.