The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland removed the constitutional prohibition of divorce. It was effected by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1995, which was approved by referendum on 24 November 1995 and signed into law on 17 June 1996.
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Overview
An absolute ban on divorce had been present in the constitution since its adoption in 1937. The prohibition reflected the religious values of the document's Roman Catholic drafters, but was also supported by senior members of the Anglican Church of Ireland. In the 1930s some other nations had similar bans, such as Italy, which didn't repeal their bans until the 1970s. By the 1980s, however, many saw the prohibition on divorce as illiberal or as discriminating against those who did not share the Christian attitude towards divorce.
The first attempt to remove the ban on divorce was the 1986 divorce referendum, held by the Fine Gael government of Garret FitzGerald. However, the proposal was rejected by voters by a substantial margin, over 25 percent. Shortly before its collapse, the 1989–92 government published a white paper on marriage breakdown, which proposed "to have a referendum on divorce after a full debate on the complex issues involved and following the enactment of other legislative proposals in the area of family law". When Fine Gael returned to government in 1994 under John Bruton an amendment bill was introduced and, after much controversy and public debate, the referendum was ultimately carried by a very slim margin, just over 0.5 percent. The Fifteenth Amendment altered Article 41.3 of the constitution, which provides for a number of fundamental rights of the family. The amendment removed the absolute prohibition on divorce but imposed a number of restrictions on its occurrence. The Catholic Church was strongly against the amendment, but stated that Catholics could vote for the amendment in good conscience, and that it would not be a sin to do so.
Court challenge
The returning officer submitted a provisional certificate of the result of the referendum in the High Court as required by the Referendum Act, 1994. A petition against the result was lodged by Des Hanafin, a Fianna Fáil Senator and chairman of the Pro Life Campaign, which was dismissed by the High Court on 9 February 1996. Hanafin appealed to the Supreme Court, which in June upheld the High Court decision. The High Court then endorsed the provisional certificate on 14 June 1996. President Mary Robinson signed the amendment bill into law three days later.
Subsequent legislation
Before the referendum, a draft Family Law (Divorce) Bill was published to illustrate how the Constitutional provisions would be implemented if the amendment were passed. Once the Constitutional amendment came into force, the divorce bill was introduced in the Oireachtas on 27 June 1996 and signed into law on 27 November 1996. This gave effect in primary legislation to the new Constitutional provisions. Although this act, the Family Law (Divorce) Act, 1996, specified its own commencement date as 27 February 1997, the first divorce was granted on 17 January 1997, based solely on the constitutional amendment, to a dying man who wanted urgently to marry his new partner.