The Gazette 1986

GAZETTE

sep

BER 1986

Practice Notes

Malicious Injuries

(Amendment) Act, 1986

The Malicious Injuries (Amendment) Bill, 1986, has

now been passed by both houses of the Oireachtas and

become law on 15 July, 1986. The purpose of the Bill

was to amend the scheme of compensation for malicious

damage to property contained in the Malicious Injuries

Act, 1981, so as to confine awards of compensation to

damage caused by riot and by the activities of unlawful

organisations and certain other kinds of organisations

referred to in section 2. The Bill will only apply to

damage or loss caused after the 15 July, 1986. Perhaps

the most important section of the Act is the new section

2 which replaces section 5 of the 1981 Act and which

reads:

"1(a) Subject to the provisions of this section

where damage, the aggregate amount of which

exceeds £100.00, is caused to any property:

(i) Unlawfully by one or more of a number

(exceeding 2) of persons riotously assembled

together, or

(ii) As a result of an Act committed maliciously

by a person acting on behalf of or in

connection with an unlawful organisation,

(iii) As a result of an act committed maliciously

by a person acting on behalf of or in

connection with an unlawful organisation,

(iii) As a result of an act committed maliciously

by a person acting on behalf of or in

connection with an organisation outside the

State that engages in, or promotes,

encourages or advocates the use of violence

for the purposes related to the conduct of

administration of the affairs of state or

Northern Ireland the person who suffers the

damage should be entitled to obtain compen-

sation from the local authorities in

accordance with the Malicious Injuries Acts

1981 and 1986."

There is a new provision in section 3(1) which allows

a Chief Superintendent, once he is of opinion that the

act from which damage resulted was committed

maliciously by a person acting on behalf of or in

connection with an organisation referred to in Section 5

of the Principal Act, to issue a Certificate which can be

produced to the Court as evidence that the act was

committed maliciously.

Section 4 of the Malicious Injuries (Amendment) Act,

1986, substitutes a new Section for sub-section (1) (2) of

Section 6 oi the 1981 Act. Section 6(1) of the 1981 Act

introduced for the first time provision for compensation

for property taken from a building damaged by persons

tumultuously and riotously assembled together. This

provision is retained in the new sub-section (1) but with

two major changes. Firstly, section 6 of the 1981 Act

confines compensation for property taken to cases

where the damage to the building or to the property

within its curtilage exceeds £100.00; the new sub-section

(1) applies this limit to the value of the property taken

rather than to the amount of the damage caused.

Secondly, under the 1981 provision compensation is

payable for property taken where damage has been

caused to building or property within its curtilage

whether or not such taking was facilitated by the

damage in question; under the new sub-section in order

that property taken should be compensatable it will be

necessary to show that the damage caused during the

riot and tumult facilitated the taking of the property or

entry to the building for the purpose of such taking.

Section 5 substitutes a new section for section 7 of

the 1981 Act which provides that it shall not be a

defence to an application for compensation to show that

the damage was caused by a person of unsound mind or

by a child. The new section extends this provision to

damage caused by persons acting under duress.

•

Domicile and Recognition

of Foreign Divorces Act, 1985

This Bill, circulated in 1985, was passed by both

Houses of the Oireachtas on 25 June, 1986, and came

into force on 2 October, 1986.

The purpose of the Bill is to abolish the old common

law rule according to which (as generally stated) the

domicile of a married woman is in all cases the same as

that of her husband and to provide instead that the

domicile of married women shall be determined in the

same way as that of any other adult. The Bill also makes

provisions for two matters which are related to the

existing rule. The first is the domicile of minor children

of the spouses (contained in section 4) and the second is

the recognition of foreign divorces (section 5).

Section 5 (recognition of foreign divorces)

This Section makes new provisions to replace the rule

as to when divorces granted in other countries are

recognised by the law of the State. The former rule (as

generally stated) was that foreign divorce was

recognised in the State if the spouses were, at the

commencement of the divorce proceedings, domiciled in

the country where the divorce was granted, or (possibly)

if, although the divorce was granted in a different

country from the country where they were domiciled,

the divorce was recognised by the law of the country

where they were domiciled. Since the former rule as to

recognition of divorces depended on the rule that the

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