89 / 196
Before he could entertain any application for a
declaration which would bind the Registrar of Political
Parties, the Registrar would have to be represented
before him and would have to be entitled to put for-
ward submissions as to what matters in his view should
influence him in deciding whether or not a party was
genuine or organised as set out in the Section.
In the absence of the Registrar as a party in these
proceedings it seemed to him he could make no declara-
tion which in some way bound him and he did not
propose to do so.
The President said he thought that that consideration
prevented him making any of the first three declarations
claimed in paragraph two of the statement of claim—
that the Registrar's decision was wrong; that the party
was at all material times a genuine political party within
the meaning of Section 13 (2) of the Act; and that the
party was organised to contest a Dáil or local elections.
On the question of the claim for a declaration that
the appeal board was wrongly constituted the President
said that here they were faced with questions of some
difficulty.
Having referred to the constitution of the appeal
board the President said that having applied for regis-
tration of the party and been refused by the Registrar
of Political Parties, they then asked for the constitution
of the appeal board. The appeal board apparently was
constituted and met and, one gathered from a letter of
16th March 1965 that on that day it decided to hold a
public sitting on March 19th at which the question
would be considered. Unfortunately, on March 18th
Dáil Eireann was dissolved and the question had been
argued as to what was the position arising from the
dissolution of Dáil Eireann on March 18th, the appeal
board having taken place on March 19th.
The President said that the plaintiffs were repre-
sented before this appeal board on March 19th at a
time when it must have been obvious to them that the
Dáil had been dissolved; the Ceann Comhairle was no
longer chairman of Dáil Eireann, if the contention now
put forward was correct. It might be that they did not
advert to that at the time and it might be that the
members of the appeal board did not advert to it.
Whatever the reason, the plaintiffs proceeded with their
application to the appeal board as if the appeal board
was properly constituted.
Afterthought
The appeal board upheld the decision of the Registrar
and it was not for quite some time after that that the
plaintiffs decided to complain as to the lack of juris-
diction of the board.
They first brought proceedings claiming a declaration
that the Statute was unconstitutional and it was only as
an afterthought that they claimed in relation to the
constitution of the board. This was perhaps not sur-
prising when one considered what the practical merits
of their claim in relation to the board were. If they had
succeeded in their appeal they would hardly have com-
plained as to the lack of jurisdiction of the board.
Having lost their appeal they now complained of the
lack of jurisdiction. They submitted that because there
was no person who could be described as the chairman
of Dáil Eireann the board could not function at all
during the period of the dissolution.
It became necessary to determine whether the board
was or was not properly constituted. It was hardly
intended that the framers of the legislation intended
that there should be no properly constituted board
during a period of dissolution of Dáil Eireann. In addi-
tion to that there was the point that the Standing
Orders of Dáil Eireann provided that the Ceann
Comhairle, who had been a member of the board on
March 16th, was not the chairman of Dáil Eireann on
March 19th and that the board on which he sat was not
properly constituted. The President said he thought that
the board could have functioned on March 19th with
Mr. Justice Kenny and the chairman of Seanad Eireann
constituting a majority and could have carried on.
That did not arise, however, because it had been
conceded on behalf of the board that if it should be
held that the Ceann Comhairle was not in fact the
Ceann Comhairle on March 19th, that the fact that he
sat with the other members was to be regarded as
invalidating the decision.
No Jurisdiction
In the result, in his view, he should make the declara-
tion that the board was not properly constituted on
March 19th and that the decision was accordingly made
without jurisdiction. The President said he had been
asked to express a view on the merits of the decision
but he felt he should not do so. In the result, he could
not deal with the claim for a declaration that the
board's decision was wrong in law.
In an
obiter dictum,
the President said that in his
view the Registrar had adopted far too high a standard
in his requirements of genuineness of organisations.
That was not to say that if the matter came before the
Registrar again he was bound by what was now being
said, or that the evidence of what was the situation in
1965 was the same as the evidence as to the situation
today or at some future date whenever the matter came
up again. But for himself—and it was entirely
obiter
dictum
—it seemed to him that the standard required by
the Registrar was very much too high.
On the application of Mr. Niall McCarthy, S.C., for
the Attorney General, the President awarded the Attor-
ney General his costs against the plaintiffs.
On an application by Mr. Donal Barrington, S.C.
(for the plaintiffs), for costs, the President said that
they had failed to secure registration for an election
held in the year 1965. They could, any time after
the meeting of Dáil Eireann subsequent to the election,
have raised the point they now made and applied to
an appeal board properly constituted and perhaps got
themselves on the register.
"But the litigation as to the constitution of the board
in the year 1965, when the litigation comes for hearing
in May 1971 is to my mind a complete waste of the
Court's time and I don't think I ought to award to the
plaintiffs the costs of wasting public time in that
fashion."
On the application of Mr. Barrington, the President
allowed a stay on the order for costs.
The Irish Times
(15th May 1971)
SUPREME COURT FINDS THAT COMMITTEE
OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS ACT 1970 IS DEFECTIVE
In a reserved judgment delivered yesterday, the Supreme
Court allowed the appeal by Mr. Paraic Haughey, of
Raheny, Co. Dublin, against a six-month sentence im-
posed on him by the High Court for failing to answer
questions put to him in last February by the Committee
of Public Accounts of Dail Eireann investigating the
disposal of the £100,000 grant-in-aid for the relief of
distress in Northern Ireland. Mr. Haughey was awarded
his costs.
The judgment, which was delivered by the Chief
Justice, Mr. Justice O Dalaigh, declared sub-section 4
of section 4 of the Committee of Public Accounts of Dail
Eireann (Privilege and Procedure) Act, 1970, to be
unconstitutionalf or being in violation of the constitu-
90