The five judges of the Supreme Court have explained why the court granted an appeal by the State against the release of a man (41) who was jailed for raping a 12-year-old girl.
The judges have each issued lengthy explanations this morning.
The man, known only as Mr A, was freed by the High Court last month following the striking down by the Supreme Court of the law under which he was jailed.
The court struck down the law following an application by a man, known as Mr C, who was convicted of having sex with a 14-year-old girl when he was 18.
This man argued that section 1 (1) of the 1935 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which made it an offence to have sex with a girl under 15, was unconstitutional because it did not allow him to plead that he was mistaken about the age of the girl.
The court ruled on May 23rd that the law was unconstitutional in that it did not allow for any such defence.
Mr A, who had served 18 months of a three-year sentence for having sex with the girl after plying her with alcohol, subsequently applied to the High Court to be freed on the basis that the law under which he was convicted did not exist. The High Court granted his application.
The State subsequently appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court, which ruled on June 2nd that Mr A was not denied his constitutional rights because he had not argued he was mistaken as to the age of the girl. The court ordered his immediate rearrest.
Today Chief Justice Murray said he was satisfied that the Constitution allows a distinction to be made between a declaration of invalidity of a certain law and the retrospective effects of such a declaration on past cases.
He said the "interests of the common good in an ordered society" were not serviced by automatically throwing out past cases that were based on laws that were subsequently struck out.
He also said in his explanation that "legal certainty" and the "need to avoid the incoherence which would be brought to the system of justice" must be borne in mind.
"I am reinforced in that view by the fact that such a principled approach is consonant with the general principles of constitutional adjudication and interpretation in other legal systems generally," he added.
The release of Mr A led to a number of other applications, brought under Article 40 of the Constitution, for release by men serving sentences under the 1935 Act. Those applications were adjourned pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal.
More than 50 cases of sex with underage girls are being examined with a view to prosecutions being brought under other laws dealing with sexual offences.