In the 1922 debates on the draft
Constitution of the Irish Free State,
Darrell Figgis' proposal to have universal jurisdiction over Free State citizens was rejected by
Kevin O'Higgins, who said "to set down here in our Constitution a principle of that kind, with no guarantee whatever that it will be honoured or accepted by any single country on the face of the earth is simply inviting ridicule". The Free State's constitutional status was modelled on that of the
Dominion of
Canada, in which the
Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 was interpreted as not allowing extraterritoriality. While Free State governments rejected in principle the idea that the 1865 act applied to their jurisdiction, in practice no attempt to breach it was made prior to the
Statute of Westminster 1931, which explicitly declared that Dominions could pass extraterritorial laws. After
the current constitution was introduced in 1937, the original text of
Article 3 stated that the Ireland's laws would have the same extraterritorial effect as those of its
predecessor state, the
Irish Free State. The
Treason Act 1939 applies to Irish citizens and residents for acts committed outside the state. The Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act 1976 allowed trial in the Republic for crimes committed in
Northern Ireland, and vice versa. This arrangement circumvented political and legal difficulties blocking the extradition of suspects in crimes related to
The Troubles. A new section was added to Article 28, stating "The State may exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction in accordance with the generally recognised principles of international law." In 2015, a
High Court judge disallowed the extradition to the United States a man accused of terrorist offences, for grounds including the failure of the
Director of Public Prosecutions to explain why the man had not been charged in an Irish court. On 4 December 2019, Irish citizen
Lisa Smith was charged in Dublin with being a member of
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) between 2015 and 2019 while resident in the Middle East; an offence under sections 6 and 7 of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005. ==References==