The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a challenge to the procedures adopted for the proposed amendment of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, approved by the people in a referendum last year.
Mr Denis Riordan, Redgate, Limerick, had appealed against a High Court decision of May 20th, 1998, refusing him an injunction restraining the holding of the referendum on the Belfast Agreement.
Delivering the court's reserved judgment, Mr Justice Barrington said part of Mr Riordan's problem was that matters had not stood still since the High Court hearing.
The people had since passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill and it had been promulgated into law. Therefore the Bill no longer existed as a separate entity.
He said Mr Riordan sought to escape the dilemma by arguing the original Bill was unconstitutional but this depended on his contention that the constitutional amendment, although approved by the people, was still an Act of the Oireachtas and subject to the provisions of Article 15.4 which provided the Oireachtas should not enact any unconstitutional law.
Mr Justice Barrington said the Supreme Court had already decided that point against Mr Riordan in other proceedings.
He said Mr Riordan also claimed any provision of the Constitution might be amended only in accordance with the procedure provided by Article 46. Mr Riordan claimed the 19th Amendment of the Constitution Act purported to amend the Constitution in a manner other than in accordance with Article 46.
Mr Justice Barrington referred to a previous Supreme Court decision where he had described the proposed mechanism of amendment - via new Section 7 - as a clever drafting device designed to resolve the problem confronting the Government following its undertaking to amend Articles 2 and 3 only on the basis that the British government and unionist parties to the Belfast Agreement would establish the power-sharing executive and cross-Border bodies contemplated in the agreement.
By means of that drafting device, the people had given a conditional assent to the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 and it was wrong to suggest the people had delegated to the Government the right to amend the Constitution.