Criminal Justice (Illicit Traffic by Sea) Act 2003

Amendment of Criminal Justice Act 1994.

28.—The Act of 1994 is amended in the following respects:

(a) in section 3(1)—

(i) by the insertion of the following after the definition of “Minister”:

“ ‘outer limit of the territorial seas’ has the meaning given to that expression by the Maritime Jurisdiction Acts 1959 to 1988;”, and

(ii) by the substitution of the following for the definition of “ship”:

“‘ship’ includes a hovercraft or submersible craft, any vessel used in navigation and any other floating craft of any description;”,

(b) by the substitution of the following section for section 33:

“Drug traffickingoffences on ships.

33.—(1) A person is guilty of a drug trafficking offence if the person does, on an Irish ship, a ship registered in a Convention state or a ship not registered in any country or territory, any act which, if done in the State, would constitute such an offence.

(2) This section is without prejudice to section 34 of this Act.”,

(c) in section 35—

(i) by the substitution, in subsection (2) of that section, of “outer limit” for “landward limits”, and

(ii) by the insertion of the following subsections after subsection 6:

“(7) Where an enforcement officer is acting under the powers conferred by subsection (1) of this section with the authority of the Minister for Foreign Affairs given under subsection (2) of this section, any person who does or fails to do any act in relation to the officer, which if done or not done in the State in relation to another person would constitute an offence, shall be guilty of that offence.

(8) Requests under this section may be transmitted by facsimile transmission or other electronic means.”,

(d) in section 36, by the substitution, in subsection (3) of that section, of “outer limit” for “landward limits”,

(e) in paragraph 4 of the First Schedule to the Act, by the substitution for “an offence mentioned in section 33 or 34 of this Act” of “a drug trafficking offence”.