The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
History
The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
But it seems to me that such standardization is best secured by definitely
reserving certain subjects of legislation to the Imperial Parliament
rather than by imposing upon the exercise of such legislation by the Irish
Parliament constitutional limitations which are certain to raise great
doubts and provoke excessive litigation. It would be far better to reserve
criminal law, as has been done in Canada, in the case of the provincial
legislatures—though not without difficulty—than to lay down certain
abstract principles. Moreover, is it desirable to maintain such uniformity
of legislative principle? There is a great deal to be said for reserving
certain subjects of legislation to the Imperial Parliament, but to impose
on the whole sphere of legislation entrusted to the Irish Parliament the
same principles as those governing the English Statute-Book, or the common
law, is to subject almost every conceivable Irish statute to the challenge
of litigious politicians. This is what has happened in the United States.
The clause, as it stood, might quite conceivably have prevented the Irish
legislature from extending the procedure of the Summary Jurisdiction Acts
to cases where it was not so extended in England—a most mischievous
result, seeing that this procedure is the sanction by which nearly every
new statute extending the scope of industrial or public health legislation
or conferring powers on local authorities is enforced.
Uniformity of legislation between the two countries is not desirable in
all directions nor has it hitherto been followed. In matters of
expropriation, for example, the drastic procedure of the Housing and Town
Planning Act has not been adopted in Ireland. Ireland has her own standard
in these matters in the case of the Irish Local Government Act, and the
Land Purchase Acts, and I am not at all sure that the principles of the
English Land Clauses Consolidation Act and Railway Clauses Consolidation
Acts as to arbitration and compensation are by any means ideal. Still less
has uniformity in the matter of criminal law been the rule hitherto
between the two countries. It would be difficult to find a parallel in
this country for the Crimes Act of 1887 (which is still on the
Statute-Book although it is no longer put in force by proclamation) with
its extensions of summary jurisdiction to cases of criminal conspiracy,
intimidation, riot, and unlawful assembly, and its provisions for a change
of venue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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