Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923
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Establishment and regulation of military prisons. |
137.—(1) It shall be lawful for any Executive Minister to set apart any building or part of a building under the control of such Minister as a military prison or detention barrack, or as a public prison for the imprisonment of military prisoners and to declare that any such building, or part of a building, shall be a military prison or a detention barrack, or a public prison, as the case may be, and every military prison so declared shall be deemed to be a public prison within the meaning of the provisions of this Act relating to imprisonment. | |
(2) It shall be lawful for an Executive Minister from time to time to make, alter, and repeal rules for the government, management, and regulation of military prisons and detention barracks, and for the appointment and removal, and powers of inspectors, visitors, governors, and officers thereof, and for the labour of military or other prisoners and soldiers undergoing detention therein, and for enabling such prisoners or soldiers to earn by special industry and good conduct, a remission of a portion of their sentence and for the safe custody of such prisoners or soldiers, and for the maintenance of discipline among them, and for the punishment by personal correction, restraint, or otherwise of offences committed by such prisoners or soldiers, so however that such rules shall not authorise corporal punishment to be inflicted for any offence, nor render the imprisonment or detention more severe than it is under the law in force for the time being in any prison in Saorstát Eireann subject to the General Prisons (Ireland) Act, 1877 , and provided that all regulations made under the Prisons Act, 1898, as to the duties of gaolers and medical officers, and all the regulations contained in the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, 1868, and the General Prisons (Ireland) Act, 1877 , as to the duties of Coroners with respect to inquests in prisons and detention barracks, shall be contained in such rules, so far as the same can be made applicable. | ||
(3) Such rules may apply to such prisons and detention barracks any enactments of the Prisons Act, 1865, imposing punishments on any persons not prisoners. | ||
(4) All rules made by a Minister in pursuance of this Section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as practicable after they are made, if the Oireachtas be then sitting, and if not, as soon as practicable after the commencement of the then next session of the Oireachtas. | ||
(5) The powers of a Minister under this Section with respect to military prisons and detention barracks shall be exercisable by the General Officer Commanding in the field, and shall include a power of declaring any place to be a military prison or a detention barracks, and the limitations on the power of making rules as to the punishment of prisoners and soldiers undergoing detention, and as to the severity of imprisonment and detention shall not apply: Provided that nothing in this sub-section or in any rules made thereunder shall authorise flogging or other corporal punishment to be inflicted for any offence. |