MANSLAUGHTER

Manslaughter, as defined in the Irish constitution, is an illegal act that causes extreme bodily harm or death of an individual in an unplanned circumstance. Though the Irish Law describes various types of manslaughter, it fails to prove the exact definition and the consequences of manslaughter by omission. Litigation of manslaughter by omission cases has for this basic reason been dependent on the individual understanding of the jury and not based on a clearly defined and predictable law. The law guiding manslaughter by omission in Ireland, therefore fails to meet the basic requirements of clarity and predictability. 

As per the Oxford law dictionary, omission is failure to fulfill a moral or legal obligation. To deliberately refuse to act in a certain moral or legal way is not sufficiently explicit though [1]. Any law on a crime that happens by omission need not just highlight the crime but ought to be descriptive enough concerning the situations where refusing to act in an expected way qualifies as a criminal offense. Subsequently, the law also needs to showcase the matching sentence for the identified crime. The Irish law however just highlights that by refusing to act in a certain way while in the capacity to act and refusing to act causes death, manslaughter by omission may be justified. 

Discussing the inefficiency of the law in view of manslaughter by omission, it is necessary to first question circumstances in which moral and legal responsibilities are attached [2]. The responsibilities must concern specific duties which are assigned naturally or legally. A moral obligation remains questionable because it is not justifiable how rules of morality can be used to make legal decisions. For instance, it could look moral for an adult to prevent a child from falling down a cliff. In case the adult does not save the child, they would plead innocent because they understand that it is not a legal obligation to do so. The law is however unclear on whether the adult would be found guilty for not taking up the responsibility of saving the child. Therefore, the law ought to be expressly descriptive of the specific moral obligations where refusing to act qualifies as manslaughter by omission.

Legal obligations in the case of manslaughter by omission also need to be concise on the responsibilities and jurisdiction. A police officer, for instance, has a legal obligation to maintain law and order. Their responsibility is, however, dependent on the location where they are assigned. The legal responsibility of a doctor to treat patients is also another legal responsibility that a doctor should fulfill adequately. In observation of the two careers, the law is not clear on how they could be said to have caused manslaughter by omission [2].  In the case of a police officer, for instance, the law on manslaughter by omission does not discretely state whether it is only in their assigned areas. In the same way, the law does not state whether a doctor is legally expected to save lives even when they are not on duty.  The Irish manslaughter by omission law, therefore, fails to showcase conditions when omission is acceptable or not making it troublesome for juries to make decisions on cases speculated to be manslaughter by omission. If the law was clear and precise, judges could not have a hard time litigating in such cases.

The only type of manslaughter by omission that is clearly stated in the Irish law is gross negligence. The law, therefore, seems not to consider other types of negligence that could cause harm to a human being but; it only considers only cases where death occurs. The law thus seems to protect some abuse on people by professionals while at the same time looking like it protects professionals from neglecting their duties [3]. For instance, in the case that one does not die but suffers lifelong infections such as paralysis due to the doctor’s negligence, the law seems to protect such a doctor since the patient does not die. A justification of negligence that could lead to paralysis as right, therefore, shows up in such a context. The Irish law thus looks like one that accepts some form of negligent omission as far as the victim does not die. Judgment on manslaughter attempts where the victims are still alive is therefore hard to decide to the gross negligence clause.

Due to the inability of deciding on the extent of when manslaughter by omission could be litigated, most cases go undecided. The Irish law depicts manslaughter by omission as a vice that is acceptable for some people while it is not accepted for others. Specifically, the law litigates only with places where dangerous activities that endanger the lives of others take place.  Due to the law being vague, different courts make different decisions even when the events resemble each other. The People (DPP), v Roseberry Construction Ltd, is one of the cases that were litigated in the country which involved manslaughter by omission where the company was fined heftily for manslaughter by omission while TheR v Stone and Dobinsoncase was judged differently and the defendants freed for stating that they had low intelligence concerning the impending danger [4]. The two cases are therefore extreme examples that show the inconsistencies of the manslaughter by omission law proving that outcomes of trials involving manslaughter by omission are not predictable because the law is indefinite.

In conclusion, while manslaughter by omission is acknowledged as a serious offense, justification of conditions in which it can be litigated and sentenced is not stated clearly in the Irish law. The law, for instance, allows some level of gross negligence meaning that it encourages some form of manslaughter by omission. Different judgments concerning manslaughter by omission have also been judged differently raising an aspect of inconsistency in the law. It is therefore essential to conclude that the Irish law on manslaughter by omission lacks clarity and predictability. 

Bibliography

 [1] Oxford Legal Dictionary.
<www.http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/omission> Accessed 21/01/19

[2] Prendergast David. ‘Gross Negligence Manslaughter in Irish Law’(2014). 

[3] Liz Campbell, Shane Kilcommins and  Catherine O Sullivan, Criminal Law in Ireland; Cases and Commentary (Clarus Press Ltd 2010) 81

[4]’Offences Against The Person Act, 1861′ (Irishstatutebook.ie, 2019) <http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1861/act/100/enacted/en/print.html> accessed 21 January 2019