The Gazette 1973

The provisions of the law relating to the election of members of Dail Eireann were contained in the Elec- toral Act, 1923, and in the amending Act of 1963 and they were contained in particular in Section 5 of that Act, which read : "A person shall be entitled to be registered as a Dail elector in a constituency if he has reached the age of 21 years and he is on the qualifying date (a) a citizen of Ireland and (b) ordinarily resident in the constituency." Mr. Justice Kenny said that he paused there to say that it was agreed by counsel for all the defendants that the reference to 21 years in that section was repugnant to the Constitution and that the section had become unconstitutional as a result of the passing of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Register provision The next provision in the Act which was relevant was the provision for a register—there was to be a register of voters made up as of a date which might be prescribed. And Section 26 provided that, subject to the subsequent provisions of the section, every person whose name was on the register of Dail electors for the time being in force in a constituency, and no other person, whould be entitled to vote at the poll at a Dail election. Mr. Justice Kenny then dealt with the regulations concerning the making of the register of elections and said that the final register had to be published on April 1, and that register came into operation on April 15. When one looked at clause four of the regulations one saw that the qualifying date for the register was Sep- tember 15 in the year preceding the year in which the register came into force, and Mr. Reynolds could not have been registered or returned last year because at that date the amendment had not been made. There- fore Mr. Reynolds did not comply with the provisions of the law relating to the election of members of Dail Eireann. Mr. Reynolds had, therefore, no constitutional right to vote, even though part of Section 5 of the Act of 1963 and part of Section 26, the part that related to the questions which may be asked of any elector ("Have you reached the age of 21 years?"), were repugnant to the Constitution. The right to vote was a constitutional right, but it was a right which, in his view, under the term sof the Constitution, arose only if one complied with the law in force for the time being relating to registration, and it was not a right to vote when a person had attained a certain age. Compilation impossible If Mr. Reynolds had a constitutional right to vote the Court would have to find some way by which that right could be exercised, but, for the reasons he had given, he did not think Mr. Reynolds had a constitutional right in the sense that having attained the age of 18 did not of itself confer a constitutinal right to vote. If he did, of course, everybody who attained that age on the day before a General Election would have the right to vote, and that would make the compilation of a register impossible. The Court also had to have regard to the fact that the Dail, having been dissolved under Article 16 (3) 2, a General Election for members of Dail Eireann should take place not later than 30 day; after its disso- lution. "The plaintiff has, in my view, no constitutional right

to vote," said Mr. Justice Kenny. He said that he himself had suggested that the draft register which had been prepared could be used as the basis of the election (counsel on both sides spent much of yesterday making submissions on this point). Mr. Justice Kenny then referred to the difficulties in relation to this suggestion and concluded that it would be administratively impossible and said that, apart from that, there was no legal authority to do so. Reference had been made to the fact that the Minister could deal with the matter by special regulation, and Mr. Justice Kenny, having discussed the relevant sections of the Act, said that he did not want to express any view on whether the Minister could be empowered under the Constitution to make an alteration in a statute. "My personal view is that he cannot," said Mr. Justice Kenny. He did not think that the fact that the Constitution had been amended so that 18 had been substituted for 21 created an emergency, nor did he think that it created a special difficulty. No way Mr. Justice Kenny said that there was no way in which the court could devise the machinery by which those between the ages of 18 and 21 could vote. The State had not, in his view, failed to protect and vindi- cate the rights of the citizens, because the right to vote was not conditional only on attaining a certain age. —The Irish Times (15-2-1973) Alleged drunken driver cleared: rules for sealing blood sample defined. A driver on a drinks charge succeeded in his High Court appeal yesterday when the judge decided that the rules for sealing a defendant's blood sample must be strictly complied with. Mr. Justice Pringle was ruling on a case stated from District Justice Lanigan O'Keeffe. And though the driver involved, John Hollingsworth, Rathnew, Co. Wicklow, was cleared, leave was granted to the Attorney-General to appeal. The District Justice, in his case stated, said Mr. Hollingsworth elected to give a sample of blood to Dr. V. Pippett, of Wicklow, who injected it into a tube which he closed by screwing back on the screw cap. Mr. Justice Pringle said the Garda agreed in evid- ence at the District Court hearing that it would be possible for any person having acess to the envelope to take out the tube, unscrew the cap and interfere with the contents, replace the cap and replace the tube in another envelope and there would be no trace of the interference. "The question to be answered," the Judge said, "is, was the blood specimen tube 'stopped' in accordance with the regulations. "Stopper" was defined as including a screw-top and the stopper provided for the doctor was a screw-top, but Mr. Rex Mackey, for Mr. Hollingsworth, submitted that the words "or similar device to seal a specimen tube" showed that the stopper must consist of some- thing more than an ordinary screw-top and that it should have a device attached to the screw-top which, Mr. Mackey submitted, would not seal the tube and that it should have a lead seal which had been attached to it when the doctor received it. 58