The Gazette 1981

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I INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND ^
GAZETTE É
Vol. 75, No. 8.
In this issue
The Entitlement of the Mentally
Time Limits in Rent Review Clauses in
Professional Information 203
Executive Editor: Mary Buckley
Editorial Board: Charles R. M. Meredith, Chairman
John F. Buckley
William Earley
Michael V. O'Mahony
Maxwell Sweeney
Advertising: Liam Ó hOisin, Telephone 3 0 5 2 36
The views expressed in this publication, save where other-
wise indicated, are the views of the contributors and
not necessarily the views of the Council of the Society.
Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.
October 1981 fieíÍíSSÍSSÍSS
Comment
Tinkering with The Constitution
CO N C E RN must be expressed at what appears to be
a well orchestrated campaign for the review of our
entire Constitution. There may be a case for examining
the provisions of a very small number of articles of a
particularly political nature whose application may no
longer seem entirely satisfactory. Many lawyers, for
instance, would favour a review of the provision in Article
4 1 . 3 .3 that governs the refusal of our State to recognise
certain divorce decrees granted by Courts in other
jurisdictions. This has led to a most unhappy situation in
which many Irish people, frequently the non-moving
party in a foreign divorce, are not aware or are unable to
obtain confident advice as to what their present marital
status is. Such an alteration would, of course, leave
unaffected the principal provision of Article 4 1 . 3 .2 that
"no law shall be enacted providing for the grant of a
dissolution of marriage."
If a Constitution is to be of lasting value to a State, it
must be capable of being interpreted and re-interpreted in
the light of contemporary mores and social situation. Our
Constitution, like many others in the Common Law
world, has as its fount the United States' Constitution. It
is important to appreciate that this document, prepared,
with its succeeding Bill of Rights, almost 2 0 0 years ago,
has acquired only 16 amendments in the following 2 0 0
years, one of which was, of course, the repeal of the
disastrous 18th Amendment, which introduced
Prohibition. Whether the qualities of the United States'
Constitution are to be attributed to the great legal skills of
Madison and Hamilton or to the c ommon sense of the
farmers and merchants who made up the majority of the
Constitutional Convention is of less significance than the
fact that their product has proved a sufficiently flexible
instrument as to require such little amendment.
Our Courts have interpreted our present Constitution
in ways which might not necessarily have pleased its
begetters and, on occasion, have restrained our legislators
from excesses by invoking the Constitution as a shield
against the supremacy of Parliament. Thus our
Constitution has served us well.
There should be no question of altering those
provisions of the Constitution which have already been
the subject of profound judicial consideration and
interpretation over the past forty years.
A Constitution is neither a toy for politicans to play
with nor a scapegoat for political failure. Our people have
twice rejected an attempt to deprive them of what they
rightly believed to be as fair an electoral system as exists
in the world.
It is to be hoped that they would similarly reject un
necessary tinkering with our present workable document.
There are more urgent tasks facing our political
leaders. •
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