Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2021

Public bill · Government · Presented

The proposed changes remove automatic extra punishments that were triggered simply because an offence was a second or later one, after the Supreme Court said those kinds of fixed penalties can be unconstitutional. In practice, it would cut out mandatory minimum prison terms and fixed fines from a small number of old laws on stolen goods, illicit distillation, licensing, firearms and serious drug offences, and tidy up related rules on repeat offending and parole. The aim is to leave sentencing more to the courts while bringing older laws into line with the Constitution.

Formal long title

Bill entitled an Act to amend the Dublin Police Magistrates Act 1808, the Illicit Distillation (Ireland) Act 1831, the Refreshment Houses (Ireland) Act 1860, the Firearms Act 1925, the Firearms Act 1964, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990, the Criminal Justice Act 2007 and the Parole Act 2019; to provide for the retrospective application of certain of these amendments in certain circumstances; and to provide for related matters.

Last updated 11 September 2024