Republic of Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland, ยง13 of the Defamation Act, 1961 prescribed penalties for blasphemous libel, but did not define the offence. The only attempted prosecution since the 1937 Constitution was in 1999; the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution had extinguished the common law offence of blasphemous libel, since when "it is impossible to say of what the offence of blasphemy consists". The Defamation Act 2009 defines a new offence of "Publication or utterance of blasphemous matter", which was held to be required by Article 40.6.1.i. of the Constitution, which states "The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law".
Read more about this topic: Blasphemous Libel
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