Representative Peer - Ireland

Ireland

See also List of Irish representative peers

Under the Acts of Union 1800, Irish peers elected twenty-eight representative peers, who served for life. The Chamber of the Irish House of Lords housed the first election, with the peers or their proxies attending. The Clerk of the Crown in Ireland was responsible for electoral arrangements; each peer voted by an open and public ballot. The results of the first election were announced by the Clerk of the Crown. After the Union, new elections were held whenever vacancies occurred due to the death of any peer. The Lord Chancellor of Great Britain —the presiding officer of the House of Lords— certified the vacancy, while the Lord Chancellor of Ireland directed the Clerk of the Crown to issue ballots to Irish peers. The ballots were returned to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, who was responsible for determining the victor.

Ireland was further represented in the House of Lords by four Lords Spiritual, who sat in rotation for terms lasting one session each. At any one time, an Archbishop and three Bishops represented Ireland, with the seats passing according to a fixed rotation, except that those Lords Spiritual who were also elected to serve as representative peers would be omitted. The rotation was changed by the Church Temporalities Act of 1833, which merged many dioceses and degraded the archbishoprics of Tuam and Cashel to bishoprics. Following its disestablishment in 1871 by the Irish Church Act 1869, the Church of Ireland ceased to send spiritual representatives to the Lords.

With the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Irish peers ceased to elect representatives, however those already elected continued to serve for life. The last of the temporal peers, the 4th Earl of Kilmorey, died in 1961. Disputes then arose as to whether representative peers could still be elected. The Act establishing the Irish Free State was silent on the matter, although the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 had abolished the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, whose involvement was required in the election process; the office of Clerk of the Crown had also been abolished in Ireland. Various Irish peers petitioned the House of Lords for a restoration of their right to elect representatives. In 1962, the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform rejected such plans. In the next year, when the Peerage Act 1963 (which among other things gave all Scottish peers the right to sit in the House of Lords) was being considered, an amendment to similarly allow Irish peers to attend was defeated, ninety to eight. Instead, the new Act gave all Irish peers the right to stand for election to the House of Commons, and to vote at parliamentary elections.

In 1965, the 8th Earl of Antrim and other Irish peers petitioned the House of Lords, arguing that the right to elect representative peers had never been formally abolished. The House of Lords ruled against the Irish peers. Lord Reid, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, based his ruling on the Act of Union, which stated that representative peers sat "on the part of Ireland." He reasoned that, since the island had been divided into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, there was no such political entity called "Ireland" which the representative peers could be said to represent. Lord Reid wrote, "A statutory provision is impliedly repealed if a later enactment brings to an end a state of things the continuance of which is essential for its operation." In contrast, Lord Wilberforce, another Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, disagreed that a major enactment such as the Act of Union could be repealed by implication. He argued instead on the basis that the Irish Free State Act 1921 —which was silent on the election of representative peers— abolished the posts of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Clerk of the Crown in Ireland. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland was responsible for calling elections of representative peers, and the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland was responsible for sending peers their ballots. Since these offices had been abolished, Lord Wilberforce argued, there was no mechanism by which Irish peers could be elected. Here too, the petitioners lost.

The petitioners did not bring up the point that Northern Ireland remained a part of the United Kingdom. Lord Reid's objections would then be rebutted, as representative peers would sit on the part of Northern Ireland. Similarly, Lord Wilberforce's arguments relating to the removal of the mechanism for the election could be answered, as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland did have replacements in Northern Ireland. Burke's Peerage & Baronetage suggests that the reason for which the arguments relating to Northern Ireland "was that leading counsel for the petitioning Irish peers was convinced that the members of the Committee for Privileges were with him on what he considered was his best argument and did not want to alienate them by introducing another point." In order to prevent further appeals on the matter, Parliament repealed, as a part of the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1971, the sections of the Acts of Union relating to the election of Irish representative peers.