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Catholic World News News Feature

IRISH COURT UPHOLDS AMENDMENT ALLOWING DIVORCE June 14, 1996

DUBLIN (CWN) - Eighty thousand Irish people whose marriages are on the rocks will be able to obtain a divorce within 18 months, following a decision by the Irish Supreme Court in mid-June.

The court rejected an appeal by anti-divorce campaigners against the result of a constitutional referendum last November. The challenge was based on a Supreme Court decision, released just one week before the referendum, that the government's expenditure of £500,000 of the taxpayers' money to promote a "Yes" vote had been undemocratic and unconstitutional.

On June 12, the five Supreme Court judges unanimously rejected the appeal. They said that the government's illegal expenditure of funds for a "Yes" vote had been an interference in the conduct of the referendum, but former Senator Des Hanafin, the head of the anti-divorce effort, had failed to prove that the campaign had materially affected the outcome of the poll.

Ireland had been the last country in Europe to preserve a ban on divorce. The prohibition was based on its Catholic-inspired constitution, drawn up in 1937 when the Republic gained independence from Britain.

After the Supreme Court decision Dr. Ger Casey, the vice-chairman of the No-Divorce Campaign, disclosed that his group would be pressing for a new divorce referendum, but did not expect early success. "We have not yet begun to fight," he said. "We will torment people for the next 40, 50, 60 years. But we're talking about climbing Mt. Everest backwards."

The Catholic bishops said they intended to make a considered statement in the future, offering guidance for Catholics in the light of the introduction of civil divorce. They reiterated the statement issued at the time of the referendum that Catholic teaching in regard to the nature and indissolubility of marriage was not changed-and could not be changed-by a change in civil law.