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To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland, this important collection of essays includes a wide range of contributions on the most significant aspects of Irish constitutional law and jurisprudence. In addition to political and legal commentators, leading academics in the fields of philosophy, history and political geography assess the history and future of the Constitution from the perspectives of their particular disciplines. The resulting blend of arguments offers a serious and sometimes controversial set of insights into the changing role of the constitution in light of social and political change in Ireland over the past 60 years. The overall result is a detailed contextual analysis of Ireland's basic law aimed at a readership interested in the Irish Constitution and constitutional matters generally.
This book provides a contextual analysis of constitutional governance in Ireland. It presents the 1937 Constitution as a seminal moment in an ongoing constitutional evolution, rather than a foundational event. The book demonstrates how the Irish constitutional order revolves around a bipartite separation of powers. The Government is dominant but is legally constrained by the courts, particularly in their interpretations of the fundamental rights protected by the Constitution. In recent decades, the courts have weakened the constitutional constraints on the Government. Political constraints imposed by opposition parties in Parliament and new accountability institutions (such as the Ombudsman) have moderately strengthened but the Government remains by far the most powerful political actor. There is a risk that such executive dominance could lead to democratic decay; however, the referendum requirement for constitutional amendment has prevented Governments from accumulating greater constitutional power. The book begins with an overview of Irish constitutional history leading to the enactment of the 1937 Constitution, before exploring the foundational decisions made by the Constitution in relation to territory, people and citizenship. Particular attention is paid to the constitutional relationship with Northern Ireland, currently unsettled by the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The book details the key institutions of state (Government, Parliament, President and courts), before analysing how different constitutional actors exercise their respective powers of governance, contestation and oversight. A thematic approach is taken to the courts' interpretation of fundamental rights, showing how judicial attitudes have markedly changed over time. Further attention is paid to both formal amendment and informal constitutional change. The Constitution today is markedly different from 1937: it is non-committal on national reunification, less influenced by Roman Catholic natural law teaching, and generally more permissive of Government action. It is perhaps these developments, however, that explain its continued success or, at least, its longevity.
The political theory of the Irish Constitution considers Irish constitutional law and the Irish constitutional tradition from the perspective of Republican theory. It analyses the central devices and doctrines of the Irish Constitution – popular sovereignty, constitutional rights and judicial review – in light of Republican concepts of citizenship and civic virtue. The Constitution, it will argue, can be understood as a framework for promoting popular participation in government as much as a mechanism for protecting individual liberties. It will be of interest to students and researchers in Irish politics, political theory and constitutional law, and to all those interested in political reform and public philosophy in Ireland.
Darrell Edmund Figgis was an Irish writer, political activist, and independent parliamentarian in the Irish Free State. He was a member of the Constitution Committee and one of the contributors to the text of the Constitution. The work presented here includes Figgis' commentary on the text of the Constitution and an explanation of some of its points.
"75 years of the Constitution of Ireland: An Irish-Italian Dialogue is a unique work which explores several core themes relating to the evolution and the achievements of the Constitution of Ireland of 1937. A distinctive feature of 75 years of the Constitution of Ireland: An Irish-Italian Dialogue is the comparative approach taken by several leading Italian scholars of public and constitutional law and their approach to different themes of the Irish Constitutional, checking the nature and implementation of the pertinent constitutional provisions and comparing them with the experiences of other European States. Irish Constitutional scholars continue this dialogue in a work which covers all the most important areas of public law: civil liberties, form of government, public administration and constitutional principles"----P. [4] of cover.
Religion features prominently in Irish history and politics. Its peculiar legal status represents one of the distinctive features of the Irish constitutional tradition. The 1937 Constitution accords religion a central position as an anchoring point of Ireland's national identity, yet also includes ostensibly strong guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion, and of equality on religious grounds, that are typical of liberal-democratic constitutional systems. It synthesizes competing theories and models, tentatively affirming religion's public status, yet committing it to the private sphere for most purposes. For the most part, the historically close relationship between the State and the Catholic Church found no clear mandate in the constitutional text, which, contrary to prevailing perceptions, imposes a limited form of Church-State separation - although the exact boundaries it imposes remain unclear. More specifically, the legal principles and doctrines relating to religious practice are ambiguous and underdeveloped, particularly in issues surrounding religious freedom and denominational autonomy. The extent to which the Constitution protects religious activity from State interference has never been decisively resolved; additionally, constitutional considerations underlie resurgent contemporary controversies in the field of Church and State - particularly in the recent public debate on the role of religion in schools. Accordingly, Religion, Law and the Irish State examines the constitutional framework governing State and religion in the broader context of the history, politics, and theory of the Church-State relationship. From a lawyer's perspective, the book provides an account of the case law and doctrine in specific areas, including religious freedom, religious equality, denominational autonomy, and Church-State separation, while also giving these subjects a comparative and theoretical treatment. For those approaching Church and State from different perspectives - including historians, political scientists, sociologists, and theologians - it offers an accessible and contextual account of the constitutional dimensions of the State-religion relationship. It explores the constitutional provisions as an expression of, but also a potential fetter upon, the evolving social and political role of religion.
This book presents a political understanding of socio-economic rights by contextualising constitution-makers' and judges' decision-making in terms of Ireland's rich history of people's struggles for justice 'from below' between 1848 and the present. Its theoretical framework incorporates critical legal studies and world-systems analysis. It performs a critical discourse analysis of constitution-making processes in 1922 and 1937 as well as subsequent property, trade union, family and welfare rights case law. It traces the marginalisation of socio-economic rights in Ireland from specific, local and institutional factors to the contested balance of core-peripheral and social relations in the world-system. The book demonstrates the endurance of ideological understandings of state constitutionalism as inherently neutral between interests. Unemployed marches, housing protestors and striking workers, however, provided important challenges and oppositional discourses. Recognising these enduring forms of power and ideology is vital if we are to assess critically the possibilities and limits of contesting socio-economic rights today.