Powers
Under the constitution the Oireachtas had exclusive authority to:
- Legislate, including approving the budget.
- Create subordinate legislatures.
- Amend the Constitution.
- Permit the state to participate in a war.
- Raise and control armed forces.
There were however also a number of limitations to the Oireachtas power:
- Laws or constitutional amendments were invalid if they violated the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
- It could not retrospectively criminalise acts that were not illegal at the time they were committed.
- Until the 1931 Statute of Westminster, the British Parliament retained the power, in theory, to legislate for the Irish Free State without its consent.
- The Oireachtas could only legislate for the Irish Free State (defined as the area which had previously been known as Southern Ireland), and not for Northern Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Oireachtas Of The Irish Free State
Famous quotes containing the word powers:
“The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“If powers divine
Behold our human actions—as they do—
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)