The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a challenge by Limerick lecturer Mr Denis Riordan aimed at halting tomorrow's abortion referendum. "This referendum is a matter for the people to decide," Ms Justice Denham said.
The court found Mr Riordan, of Clonconane, Redgate, had advanced no arguable ground on which he might be granted leave to challenge the procedure by which it is intended to amend Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution. It also awarded costs against Mr Riordan.
Last week, the court refused to grant Mr Riordan an interlocutory injunction stopping the referendum and instead granted an early hearing of Mr Riordan's appeal against a High Court decision last month refusing him leave to take judicial review proceedings halting the referendum.
In those proceedings, Mr Riordan intended to argue that the mechanism for amending the Constitution was indirect, conditional, illegal and unconstitutional. The appeal was heard yesterday.
In a written judgment delivered on behalf of the court, Ms Justice Denham said Mr Riordan was clearly right in stating the proposal to amend Article 40 was contained in a proposal to amend Article 46. If the referendum was passed, the Oireachtas could pass the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Act, 2001, into law.
In that event, it was intended the amendments to Article 40 would become effective. It was an essential part of the "conditional drafting scheme" that the amendments to Article 40 remain conditional.
Mr Riordan had argued that Article 46 (which provides for amendment of the Constitution) prohibited the amendment of one Article in terms which provided for the amendment of another Article. Disagreeing, the court ruled there was nothing in Article 46 which limited the scope of the power of the Oireachtas to place a proposal before the people for amendment of the text of one Article so as to vary or amend another.
The court also found the amendment was in accordance with a scheme to make the amendment effectively conditional on the passing of a particular piece of legislation.
