Supreme Court of Ireland - Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

After a slow start in its first two decades of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has expounded a significant constitutional jurisprudence. This slow start was partly because, prior to 1922, the whole of Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom, and Supreme Court judges had been trained in British jurisprudence, which stresses the sovereignty of parliament and deference to the legislature. It was also the case that under the 1922 Constitution there was a right of appeal to the Privy Council which was exercised on a number of occasions. Nonetheless from the 1960s onwards the Court has made a number of significant decisions. It has, for example:

• Developed a doctrine of unenumerated rights (not entirely unlike its American namesake) based on an expansive reading of Article 40.3.1°, with elements of natural law and liberal democratic theory.
• Developed and defended the separation of powers.
• Ruled that major changes to the treaties establishing the European Union may not be ratified by the state unless allowed by a previously passed constitutional amendment.
• Ruled that Articles 2 and 3 (as they stood before 1999) did not impose obligations upon the state that were enforceable in a court of law.
• Discovered a broad right to privacy in marital affairs implicit in Article 41.
• Discovered a right to an abortion where there is a risk to the life of the mother through suicide in Article 40.3.3°.
• Imported the doctrine of proportionality into Irish law.