A Limerick man was escorted by gardai from the Supreme Court yesterday after he described the five judges as "traitors" when they awarded costs against him.
They dismissed his application to prevent the Government amending Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution as provided for in a referendum approved by the people last May.
Mr Denis Riordan, Clonconane, Redgate, Limerick, a college lecturer, denounced the judges after they had awarded costs against him in relation to his proceedings against the State.
Minutes earlier Mr Riordan was repeating some of the arguments made by him when the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, interrupted and said the court would not enter an argument and was awarding costs of the application against him.
Mr Riordan objected and said he strongly believed he had raised matters of public interest. He told the Chief Justice: "You are a disgrace to your country. You are a traitor to the Constitution." Facing all the judges, he continued: `You are all traitors." He added: "This court is out to destroy me."
At that point the Chief Justice told Mr Riordan he was asking the gardai to remove him "before you go too far". Mr Riordan was then escorted from the court. In separate judgments, the court earlier unanimously dismissed challenges by Mr Riordan to the procedures for the amendment of Articles 2 and 3, to the constitutionality of the Divorce Act 1996 and other matters and awarded costs against him.
Mr Justice Barrington said the court could not issue a declaration that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Act 1998, intended to give effect to measures in the Belfast Agreement including changes to Articles 2 and 3 which was approved in the referendum, was unconstitutional. The 19th amendment was carried and was part of the Constitution.
Neither could the court grant an order prohibiting the Government from changing the Articles until other provisions of the Constitution were complied with.
He said Mr Riordan had asked the court to allow him to amend proceedings he initially brought before the High Court last May, where they were rejected. Mr Riordan was seeking to make a new case which would attack, not the proposal to amend the Constitution, but the amendment to the Constitution already carried. The Supreme Court could not do that.
He said Mr Riordan was effectively saying the Oireachtas could not propose and the people could not approve of a conditional amendment to the Constitution and that a second referendum should have been held to amend Articles 2 and 3 when the Northern Ireland power-sharing Executive and cross-Border bodies contemplated by the Belfast Agreement were in place.
The judge said Mr Riordan had failed to understand the problem which confronted the Government regarding the Agreement.
It imposed reciprocal obligations on the various parties to it and each party wished to be assured the others would carry out their obligations. The Irish Government had undertaken to have Articles 2 and 3 amended but only on the basis that the British government and the unionist parties would establish the executive and cross-Border bodies.
The judge said it was true the amendment effected by the 19th Amendment Act was "in form" an amendment to Article 29 of the Constitution and not to Articles 2 and 3, but the 19th Amendment was now part of the Constitution and was now Section 7 of Article 29 in which the proposed new texts of Articles 2 and 3 were lying for all to see.
When the Government said the State was obliged, pursuant to the Belfast Agreement, to give effect to the amendment of the Articles, the existing Articles 2 and 3 would be replaced by the new Articles.
Under those circumstances, there was no substance to Mr Riordan's objections to the 19th Amendment Act. The court dismissed the motion.
In another judgment, also delivered by Mr Justice Barrington, the court refused to grant a declaration that the Family Law (Divorce) Act 1996 was unconstitutional.
He also refused declarations that the appointment of Mr Alan Dukes as a member of the Government was unconstitutional or that the appointments of Miss Justice Mella Carroll as chairwoman of the Commission on Nursing and Mr Justice Brian Mc Cracken as sole member of a tribunal of inquiry, were also unconstitutional.
Mr Riordan's additional applications for declarations that the existence and operations of the Office of the Tanaiste from January 1993 to the end of April 1997 were unconstitutional were also rejected.
Mr Justice Barrington also dismissed arguments that former Taoiseach Mr John Bruton acted illegally by allowing the use of public funds and the office of the Tanaiste to continue unabated when he became Taoiseach in December 1994.
The judge said Mr Riordan had made "quite scandalous and unnecessary allegations" against Mr Bruton; the former Tanaiste, Mr Dick Spring; Mr Dukes; Miss Justice Carroll and Mr Justice McCracken.
The court would not entertain any submissions which reflected upon the integrity of named persons.