Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 April 2014
416. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the progress on ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which Ireland signed on 29 March 2007; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16761/14]
View answerThe International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance requires each State Party to take the necessary measures to ensure that enforced disappearance constitutes an offence under its criminal law. For the purposes of the Convention, "enforced disappearance" is considered to be "the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law".
Article 40.4.1 of the Constitution provides that no citizen shall be deprived of their liberty save in accordance with law.
Ratification of the Convention requires domestic legislation.
Section 15 of the Non Fatal Offences against the Person Act provides for an offence of false imprisonment which addresses circumstances where a person is taken or detained, or whose personal liberty is restricted by another person without the consent of the person involved. A person guilty of false imprisonment is liable or on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for up to life.
Consent is deemed to be absent where the person responsible obtains the other's consent by force or threat of force, or by deception causing the other to believe that he or she is under legal compulsion to consent.
The Act also provides for a child abduction offence.
Ireland is committed to ratification of the Convention as soon as competing legislative priorities permit.
