A working paper on the succession rights of co-habiting couples, will be part of the work of the Law Reform Commission in the coming year, according to the commission's president. This will include the rights of same-sex couples.
The president, Mr Justice Budd, was introducing the Commission's annual report for 2000 yesterday.
Ongoing research includes the preparation of three reports on the law of homicide. The first of these will be on the mental element in murder and will examine whether the existing law on intention to kill is adequate. Mr Justice Budd pointed out that it would be open to anyone charged with, for example, the Omagh bombings, to argue that they did not intend to kill anyone, and therefore defeat a charge of murder, which requires an intention to kill or cause serious injury.
The consultation paper on this issue will consider whether the definition of murder should include reckless indifference to the value of human life.
Other aspects of the law on homicide to be examined will include the defence of provocation. The law in Ireland differs from that in other common-law countries in emphasising the subjective element - whether the circumstances of the defendant meant they were provoked. In other common-law countries, more objective criteria, emphasising whether a reasonable person would have been provoked in the circumstances, are used.
The commission will also be looking at restorative justice, which would be a radically different approach to criminal justice, Mr Justice Budd said. At the moment the law is concerned with the relationship between the perpetrator and society, but restorative justice seeks to attend to the needs of the victim, and tries to reintegrate the offender into the community and thus prevent re-offending.
"Plainly there are many types of case in which the new approach would not be appropriate and probably some in which it would be to everyone's advantage," the annual report states. "Part of the commission's research is directed to determining the point at which to draw this line." Mr Justice Budd said this would be particularly relevant to juvenile offenders.
The commission will also look at the issue of corporate homicide. This may require the invention of a totally new offence, according to Prof Finbarr McAuley, a member of the commission.
"The stakes are very high," he said. "It can be difficult to find an individual with the requisite degree of mental responsibility for the death or deaths. We are looking for alternative ways of fixing responsibility within corporations."
Ms Patricia Rickard Clarke, another member of the commission, said that the law on succession precluded long-terms co-habitees from the automatic right to inherit. In addition, taxation law treated co-habitees as strangers for inheritance purposes. The commission would be looking at succession law for people like this, including for same-sex couples, she said.
Tribunal law is another area of law to be examined by the commission. It will look at the history of tribunals and commissions of inquiry, and the recent experience, ranging from inspectors' inquiries to tribunals under High Court judges, such as the beef, Flood, Moriarty and McCracken tribunals, all of which have faced challenges in the courts.
Dr Hilary Delany, another member of the commission, said the emphasis would be on improving the efficiency and lowering the cost of tribunals.