The Gazette 1989

GAZETTE

OCTOBER 1989

virtually all the guarantees contained in it are in the Irish Constitution. That is why there have been so few Irish cases brought - only t wo so far. Complaints would already be dealt wi th in the Irish courts. How does being e judge of a national court compare wi th being a judge at the European Court of Human Rights? The experience is quite pleasant in the sense that virtually every matter I've dealt w i th since 1980, when I went to the European Court of Human Rights, I had already dealt w i th in one form or another here. The same problems keep cropping up, as do the same problems that have been en- countered in the United States. Quite recently in Strasbourg we had to decide a case involving a property matter in Britain. We actually applied a decision of the United States Supreme Court that touched exactly on the point. I might add that this delighted the United States Supreme Court - it was the first time they had ever been mentioned in a decision of the ECJ. They were very pleased by it.

I got a letter from them about it. They like to know that their judg- ments are of worldwide value. •

but our views coincided, although not always in every particular. What has baan the relationship be tween Irish l aw and t he European institutions? Every country in Europe save the United Kingdom has a written con- stitution. So with our entry into the European Community we were going into a system which we were already well aware of from our own system. The Treaties are all subject, in the last analysis, to the inter- pretations of the European Court of Justice at Luxembourg. So to that extent every country has sur- rendered a bit of sovereignty. But to us that was nothing new because we lived under a system where there was judicial review anyway. So we didn't suffer from the shock which perhaps may have been suffered in the United Kingdom, where the system of parliamentary supremacy reigns and no law can ever be challenged once it has been passed. We were quite accustomed to striking down laws. It is similar wi th the European Convention on Human Rights. While it is not part of the domestic law of Ireland,

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