Impact of Supreme Court Jurisprudence on Referendums on European Union Treaties in Ireland, Schemes and Mind Maps of Law

Download Impact of Supreme Court Jurisprudence on Referendums on European Union Treaties in Ireland and more Schemes and Mind Maps Law in PDF only on Docsity! REFLECTIONS ON THE SUPREME COURT RULINGS IN CROTTY, COUGHLAN AND MCKENNA (NO. 2) Dr. Gavin Barrett 1 A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED: REFLECTIONS ON THE SUPREME COURT RULINGS IN CROTTY, COUGHLAN AND MCKENNA (NO. 2) Dr. Gavin Barrett 1 "I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost, The Road Less Travelled “I reiterate that it is an independent constitutional value, essential to the maintenance of parliamentary democracy, that the legislature and the executive retain their proper independence in their respective spheres of action.” - Hardiman J. in Sinnott v. Minister for Education 2 “The people are the ultimate sovereign but there is no constitutional device which will ensure that their ultimate decision will be infallible or even that it will be prudent, just or wise. The most we can hope for in relation to any sovereign, including the sovereign people, is that before making its decision it will be well informed and well advised. In this context to play down, or neutralise, the role of political leaders in favour of committed amateurs would be, to say the least, unwise.” - Barrington J. in Coughlan v. Broadcasting Complaints Commission 3 Introduction It is not easy to find the optimum moment to pen a critique of the Irish Supreme Court rulings which form the legal framework according to which are determined the answers to the questions of whether and how to hold a referendum on a European Union Treaty. If one proffers ideas in this regard when no referendum has been held or is in the offing, the point will seem a rather abstract one, examination of which can wait for another day. If, in contrast, one writes in a critical manner on the holding or even the manner of conduct of such referendums at a moment like the present – when a referendum on a European Treaty has recently been defeated - one leaves oneself open to the charge that one’s real motive is to help reverse the result of that referendum.4 Although, as will become 1 Senior Lecturer, Director of Doctoral Studies, School of Law, University College Dublin. This views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. This paper was written in the period between the first unsuccessful referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in June 2008 and the second successful referendum in October 2009 and the law is stated as it stood in early 2009. The writer is grateful for the input of Professor David Gwynn Morgan, Cathryn Costello, Dr. Katya Ziegler, Dr. Alicia Hinarejos, T. John O’ Dowd, Madeleine Coumount de Bairéid and of attendees both at the UCD Irish European Law Forum, Responses to the Lisbon Treaty Referendum: EU and National Perspectives held on 23 January, 2009, and at the presentation given by the author at the Institute of European and Comparative Law in Oxford University on 11 February, 2009. A less extensively footnoted version of what follows is to be found sub. nom. "Building a Swiss Chalet in an Irish Legal Landscape? Referendums on European Union Treaties in Ireland and the Impact of Supreme Court Jurisprudence" (2009) 5 European Constitutional Law Review 32. 2 [2001] 2 IR 545 at 707-708. 3 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 43. Note that this was a dissenting opinion. 4 The danger to be avoided has been well expressed by Senator Barack Obama (as he then was) in the following terms: “more often than not, if a particular procedural rule –the right to filibuster, say, or the Supreme Court’s approach to constitutional interpretation – helps us win the argument and yields the outcome we want, then for that moment at least we think it’s a pretty good rule. If it doesn’t help us win, then we tend not to like it so much.” (See B. Obama, The Audacity of Hope (Canongate, Edinburgh, 2006) at 88.) However, as Zakaria has observed, “the results of one piece of 4 campaign of this kind than on referendums on other matters. A third response is that the combination of the application of these cases with the application of the Crotty ruling has resulted in Irish ratifications of European constitutive treaties being affected to a unique extent by McKenna (No. 2) and Coughlan. All three cases examined in this article are examples of judicial activism.17 All three were initiated by long-standing opponents either of the European Union itself or of all recent Treaty reforms of the European Union. All three represent a successful call to the unelected judicial branch of government to bring about ends with major ramifications for European policy that would not have been attained by what one may characterise as the normal method of securing legal change – viz., election to the legislative and executive branches of government. McKenna (No. 2) and Coughlan did not concern referendums on European Treaties as such (but rather the 1995 divorce referendum). That may have distracted the attention of many – not excluding the Supreme Court itself - from their implications for the ratification of EU Treaties: it is nonetheless undeniable that the principal impact of these rulings has been in relation to Irish involvement in Treaty change in the European Union.18 The effect of the case-law examined in this article may be summarised as involving three steps. Step One has been that the Crotty case closed off the only possibility remaining (i.e., given the strictness of the drafting of the ‘necessitated’ clause in what is now Article 29.4.10° of the Constitution) that representative democracy – the more usual decision-making process in Irish political life – would apply in relation to the question of the ratification of major European Treaties, thereby ensuring the ascendancy in this respect of direct democracy. In other words, it all but ensured that any major European Treaty will be sent to referendum rather than being decided upon by parliamentary democratic means. Step Two was that the ruling in McKenna (No. 2), then effectively crippled the Government’s power to influence directly the course of any such referendum by forbidding it to spend resources on a campaign. This loss of influence is not exclusive to referendums on European Treaties but it is particularly keenly felt there given the dominant role of the executive in European matters (particularly in this jurisdiction). The result of McKenna has been to shift the task of persuasion in a referendum, making it fall by default on politicians and political parties. In practice, the difficulty of understanding, much less explaining a Treaty such as the Lisbon Treaty appears to be a daunting one for many politicians (many of whom, it should be recalled, have no particular expertise in European law or policy and have few dealings with European Union institutions in their daily lives). As if matters were not difficult enough, however, what we may call Step Three has been the application. of the Coughlan ruling, which has in practice had the effect of deprive those same politicians and political parties in a referendum campaign of the kind of influence and access to the airwaves that they would normally enjoy by virtue of their elected position. Instead they find themselves given literally not one second more time on the airwaves than unelected campaigners whose sole qualification before they are handed 50% of airtime on both public and private broadcast media to put forward their views is that they have uttered the word ‘no’. Put another way, influence formerly enjoyed by elected politicians has been transferred directly to unelected pressure groups or politicians with a tiny proportion of national electoral support. The result of the application of this case-law, and – almost as crucially - the failure to provide an appropriate legislative reaction to it has been - to borrow the words of Barrington J. in his powerful dissenting opinion in Coughlan - ‘to play 17 Morgan has described as coming within the definition of activism the situation of where “in order to resolve the case one way or the other…a judge has to call on some element of policy choice or preference. In this sort of case, if the judge selects the option of not accepting the status quo as it is given in the form or law or government action, but instead strikes down the law or action as unconstitutional then the judge is (on the definition in use here) performing an act of ‘judicial activism’”. Another formulation by the same writer is that “in some constitutional cases, an act of selection by the judge beyond the mere deployment of the skills of legal technique is called for, and if he/she makes the positive choice of departing from the path adopted by the legislative or executive, we may call this judicial activism.” (D. G. Morgan, op. cit.,n. 8 at pp. 7 and 8.) 18 The caution concerning judicial activism which issued by Chief Justice Ó Dálaigh in McMahon v. Attorney General in this respect comes to mind. “Constitutional rights” he asserted “are declared not alone because of bitter memories of the past but no less because of the improbable, but not-to-be-overlooked, perils of the future”. (See [1972] IR 69 at 111). 5 down, or neutralise, the role of political leaders in favour of committed amateurs’.19 The surprise, given such a constitutional and regulatory framework, has not been that the Irish Government has now lost a referendum on a European Treaty. The surprise is rather that it should be thought possible for a Government to keep winning such referendums in an environment like this. It is not the contention of this article, however, that the entirety of the responsibility for this situation should lie on the shoulders of the judiciary. In the first place, an adequate legislative response to the Coughlan and McKenna (No. 2) rulings would have done much to ameliorate the situation, and helped to avoid defeat in the 2008 Lisbon Treaty referendum. Such a response was never given, however – in part, perhaps, because of the “gravity of past success” of the Government in the (second) Nice Treaty referendum of 2002.20 Secondly, insofar as concerns the defeat of the 2008 Lisbon Treaty referendum, there were of course numerous reasons extraneous other than those examined this article which also played a role. Some were national (including disillusion with political leaders, the traditional figures of authority, in the wake of a number of well-publicised corruption scandals,21 the tendency of farming and some trade union groups to use the Lisbon Treaty referendum simply as an opportunity to advance their own sectional interests 22 and the influence of a Eurosceptical element in the press, some of it domestic, some of it imported from the United Kingdom 23). Some were of a European-wide nature: the European Union’s difficulties in winning a share of the affections of its population which is commensurate with its achievements are no secret.24 It is nonetheless the contention of this article that the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court examined here at the very least rendered the prospects for ratification of the Lisbon Treaty considerably worse than they otherwise would have been. Crotty v. An Taoiseach 25 Crotty v. An Taoiseach, the oldest of the three Irish Supreme Court decisions which form the focus of this article, has had a major impact on both the legal and political level and is the main judicial authority relating to the need to have recourse to a constitutional referendum in the process of the ratification of a European Union Treaty. The ruling in Crotty v. An Taoiseach itself related to an appeal brought by an individual against the dismissal by the High Court of (a) his claim that the European Communities (Amendment) Act, 1986 – which purported to incorporate much of the Single European Act 26 into domestic Irish law - was constitutionally invalid; and (b) his claim for an injunction restraining the Government from ratifying the Single European Act and associated declarations. The ruling in Crotty was delivered in two parts, dealing with each of these issues respectively 19 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 43. 20 The expression is that used by former world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, who has referred to “the gravity of past success. Winning creates the illusion that everything is fine. There is a very strong temptation to think only of the positive result without considering all the things that went wrong – or could have gone wrong – on the way.” (G. Kasparov, “How Life Imitates Chess” (Heinemann, London, 2007) at 180). 21 See in this regard the Government-commissioned Millward Brown IMS, Post Lisbon Treaty Research Findings (Dublin, September, 2008) at p. 13. This loss of faith in politicians may explain in part the curiously high profile in the 2008 referendum campaign of the opinions of millionaire businessmen and media stars, notwithstanding the absence of any indication that either had any particular expertise or experience in relation to European Union matters. 22 See in relation to the ongoing nature of this phenomenon, P. Leahy, “Unions and Farmers Seek Lisbon Support Concessions” Sunday Business Post, 14 December, 2008. 23 On Euroscepticism in Ireland generally, see T. Brown, “Battling the Beast of Brussels: the Methods of Irish Euroscepticism”, Dublin Review of Books, Issue 5, Spring, 2008, available online at http://www.drb.ie/more_details/08- 09-25/battling_the_beast_of_brussels.aspx 24 Former senior Irish diplomat, Noel Dorr has referred to Ireland as having functioned as something of a ‘canary in the mineshaft’ for the rest of Europe in this respect by virtue of its ongoing resort to referendums. 25 [1987] IR 713. 26 A Treaty which amended the constitutive treaties of the European Union. 6 In the first part of its judgment in Crotty (which related to the constitutionality of legislation designed to incorporate the provisions of the Single European Act into Irish law 27), the Supreme Court, as constitutionally required,28 delivered a single judgment. The Court held that there was no unconstitutionality involved in adopting the incorporating legislation because, inter alia, the amendments effected by the Single European Act did not go beyond the essential scope or objectives of the original treaties. The classic formulation of this rather vague test was delivered for the Court by Finlay CJ in the following terms: “it is the opinion of the Court that the first sentence in Article 29, s. 4, sub-s. 3 of the Constitution must be construed as an authorisation given to the State not only to join the Communities as they stood in 1973, but also to join in amendments of the Treaties so long as such amendments do not alter the essential scope or objectives of the Communities. To hold that the first sentence of Article 29, s. 4, sub-s. 3 does not authorise any form of amendment to the Treaties after 1973 without a further amendment of the Constitution would be too narrow a construction; to construe it as an open-ended authority to agree, without further amendment of the Constitution, to any amendment of the Treaties would be too broad.” 29 The approach taken in Crotty thus hinges largely on the question of whether a new Treaty (such as the Treaty of Lisbon) alters the essential scope or objectives of the existing Treaties. If it does, then Crotty establishes that the existing constitutional authorisations to join the Community and the Union respectively found in Articles 29.4.3° and 4° of the Irish Constitution (and the authorisations to ratify amending Treaties contained in the Constitution 30) will not extend to permitting the ratification of the relevant Treaty should such ratification involve any unconstitutionality under any provision of the Bunreacht.31 Crotty thus results in a constitutional amendment becoming necessary in Ireland whenever the Government wishes the State to ratify a Treaty which in the view of the Irish courts would go beyond the essential scope or objectives of the existing Treaties.32 If the Court adopted a non-purposive approach to the application of the ‘essential scope or objectives’ test in Crotty, at least neither can it be said to have adopted an entirely minimalistic approach to it. Hence, significantly, Finlay C.J. pointed out on behalf of the Court that “neither the proposed changes from unanimity to qualified majority, nor the identification of topics which while now separately stated, are within the original aims and objectives of the EEC, bring these proposed amendments outside the scope of the authorisation contained in 27 Viz., the European Communities (Amendment) Act, 1986 28 Article 34.4.5° of the Irish Constitution provides that “the decision of the Supreme Court on a question as to the validity of a law having regard to the provisions of this Constitution shall be pronounced by such one of the judges of that Court as that Court shall direct, and no other opinion on such question, whether assenting or dissenting, shall be pronounced, nor shall the existence of any such other opinion be disclosed.” 29 [1987] I.R. 713 at 767. Emphasis added. The closing paragraphs of the single judgment of the Court delivered by Finlay C.J. elaborated slightly on this test by indicating that particular proposals contained in the Single European Act did not go beyond the existing constitutional authorisation in that they had not been shown to “alter the essential character of the Communities. Nor has it been shown that they create a threat to fundamental constitutional rights.” ([1987] I.R. 713 at 770. Emphasis added.) The clear implication was that if they had, then the Article 29.4.3° licence to join the Communities would not have extended to them. 30 Currently, these are the Article 29.4.5° and 7° authorisations to ratify the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice respectively. 31 Should such permission be constitutionally necessary by virtue of what would otherwise be an unconstitutionality inherent in its ratification. 32 Should such permission be constitutionally necessary by virtue of what would otherwise be an unconstitutionality inherent in its ratification. 9 on the 7th day of February, 1992, and may become a member of that Union”) should reflect this. One may take the view both that the Crotty ‘essential scope or objectives’ test is an appropriate one and that it should have been applied in a broad enough manner to cover provisions such as those considered in the latter part of the judgment in Crotty. Quite apart from the questionable interpretation given to the requirements of sovereignty by the Supreme Court majority in the second part of Crotty, the approach of the entire Supreme Court approach towards Title III of the Single European Crotty is arguably one which would better suit a situation in which Ireland had joined a static unchanging entity, not a constantly evolving organisation like the European Union.45 There is scope therefore for the Supreme Court in a future case to adopt a more flexible approach to its own test in its future case-law. There is no guarantee, however, that the Court will take any such course. Even should it wish to change direction, the Court would, like any other Court, have to be seised of a case which required a ruling on this issue. Until this happens, above and beyond the unsatisfactory vagueness of the Crotty test, we have only the single experience of the relatively restrictive manner of the application of the ‘essential scope or objectives’ test in Crotty. In such circumstances, it seems difficult to criticise excessively any Government for feeling that recourse to a referendum to ratify any significant European Union constitutive treaty is effectively de rigeur under Irish constitutional law as so as to avoid later difficulties associated with an unsuccessful parliamentary ratification. A Problem of Uncertainty Crucial to an understanding of this area of law is the realisation that, with Crotty having been to date the only case to have been decided on the point, however, it is virtually impossible to know in advance when an amending Treaty goes beyond the essential scope or objectives of the existing Treaties. Certainty - should the Government ever seek to ratify a constitutive European Treaty in whole or in part by parliamentary means alone - would normally only be capable of being provided by (a) a reference by the Irish President to the Supreme Court of any legislative Bill purporting to incorporate the terms of the Treaty into Irish law for an opinion on its Constitutionality,46 or else by (b) a challenge by a private party to the constitutionality of incorporating legislation and/or to any attempt by the Government to ratify the Treaty or any part thereof without a referendum. The question, for example, of whether and to what extent parliamentary ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon was ever possible is therefore shrouded in uncertainty and is impossible to answer definitively in the absence of a Supreme Court ruling. It has been suggested however that specific elements of the Treaty of Lisbon might go beyond ‘the essential scope or objectives of the existing Treaties’ test. The relevant aspects of the Treaty include: (i) its giving of legal effect to the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; (ii) the ending of the situation whereby the European Community has a separate identity; (iii) the extension of qualified majority voting in the criminal justice field; (iv) the role of the proposed High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.47 45 The further point may be made that the ‘essential scope or objectives’ of what is now the European Union have not stood still since Crotty was decided. In the 22 years since the ruling in Crotty was handed down, the Treaties have been subjected to no less than four major amendments (not including accession treaties), and the Irish Constitution itself been amended four times to accommodate this change. The scope and objectives of the Treaties are clearly wider than they were in 1987 (at which point, for example, the European Union as such had not been founded) and the cumulative effect of successive amendments to the Constitution – could perhaps be argued to require a broader approach to the ‘essential scope or objectives’ test (unimaginative though the drafting of such successive Constitutional amendments may have been). (My thanks to Professor David Gwynn Morgan for raising this point.) 46 Such references can be made under Article 26 of the Constitution, and although the President is obliged to consult the Council of State before taking such action, the question of whether to make a reference is, ultimately, entirely a matter for his or her discretion, and thus outside the control of the Government. 47 Most of the foregoing suggestions are taken from G. Hogan, “Reflections on the Lisbon Referendum” (unpublished paper delivered at a conference organised by the Irish Centre For European Law, After Lisbon:The Future of Ireland and the EU held at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin on 23 October 2008.) 10 In practice, every Irish Government ratifying a Treaty since Crotty has found itself under immense pressure to hold a referendum even when there is merely a reasonable probability of Treaties going beyond the essential scope/objectives of existing constitutive Treaties. Crotty ushered in an era when having a referendum on a European Treaty became the legally safe option in ratifying. Referendums have been held as part of the Irish ratification process of all constitutive Treaties which followed on the judgment – the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty of Nice and now the Treaty of Lisbon (as well of course as the Single European Act, which was the Treaty at issue in Crotty itself). Political Implications From a political perspective, the Crotty case has also contributed to an expectation on the part of many in the Irish public that every major European treaty will be accompanied by a referendum.– and thus political pressure to proceed in this manner Overall, the effect of the Crotty ruling on the nature of Irish democracy is not to be underestimated. The combined impact of (a) the rule that the Irish Constitution can only be amended by a process involving a referendum,48 (b) the strictness of the drafting of the ‘necessitated’ clause in what is now Article 29.4.10° 49 and (c) the Crotty case has led to the deployment in Ireland of direct democracy in the place of representative democracy to an extent unparalleled in any other state in the European Union. In practice, referendums are held on the ratification of European Treaties in Ireland independently of the will of both democratically-elected branches of government, which, correspondingly to this extent, lose control of the process of government here. To the extent that the Constitution is deemed to mandate a referendum, the role of these branches is reduced to one deciding matters such as the form of the referendum proposal and the timing of the referendum 50 – but not the question of whether a referendum should take place in the first place. Nor of course does a referendum take place because it is called for in any citizen initiative. It takes place because, inter alia, the Supreme Court in Crotty asserted that this is what the Constitution implicitly requires, the Constitution making no express provision on the point. 51 Such referendums are thus held without independently of any individual assessment of the suitability of particular referendum topics for decision in referendum. The Crotty test makes no allowance for the complexity of the Treaty being considered, the subtle nature of the balances it may involve between competing interests, and the question of whether a document of such complexity is a suitable one with which to confront an electorate which has never been versed in the intricacies of how the institutions and bodies of the European Union function (and thus is open to being misled by ill-informed or deliberately incorrect assertions concerning the provisions of the Treaty in question). 48 See Article 46 of the Constitution, and in particular section 2 thereof. 49 Article 29.4.10° provides that “no provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State which are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union or of the Communities, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the European Union or by the Communities or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the Treaties establishing the Communities, from having the force of law in the State.” In its original (draft) version, this provision would have protected laws, acts or measures which were “consequent on” even if not “necessitated by” the obligations of membership. The tightening up of this formulation was an amendment effected at the behest of Fine Gael in Opposition, and advocated in the Dáil by the then Fine Gael spokesperson, Dr. Garret FitzGerald - before this provision was approved by the Oireachtas and subsequently by the people in referendum. This turned out to be a fateful change, at least when seen in the light of the Crotty ruling. (See 258 Dáil Debates 401-403 (25 January, 1972)). 50 Although the timing of a referendum is not entirely a matter of Government discretion either, since the need to have the Treaty ratified within a reasonable time frame by all member states will in practice impose limits on the extent to which a referendum on a European treaty can be delayed to a point in time which suits the Government. 51 It might be argued that the failure to amend the Constitution so as to alter the Crotty approach represents an implicit acceptance of that approach but the matter has never been put to the people. 11 The Appropriateness of Referendums in Given Situations It is difficult to form an opinion about Crotty without also considering a more fundamental question raised implicitly by the case, which is that of in what circumstances referendums are to be viewed as an appropriate decision-making method, particularly (although not exclusively) in the context of European treaties.52 This question, although too broad to be considered in an article as short as the present, clearly merits reflection. At times in Ireland, there has been a tendency among some (particularly opponents of European integration) to view the approach taken by all 26 other member states of the European Union in not having a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, as in some way meaning they having cheated their populations of their democratic rights.53 For such individuals, the superiority of referendums as a democratic decision-making process seems utterly self-evident. But while respect for the outcomes of referendums is, of course, necessary, it is submitted that this should not absolve us of the responsibility to analyse the merits and defects of this form of democracy. Referendums, like any other democratic process have their own advantages - and disadvantages. On the positive side, referendums give citizens the chance to express directly their view on a subject which may be enormously important to them. They can bring discussion of issues into the daily life of the citizen, and have an educational benefit. They can provide a vital element of legitimacy when used, for example to adopt a Constitution or confirm a major constitutional step such as initial accession to the European Union. They can also be a means of exerting control on a Government where one political party has a constant electoral majority (as in the state of Bavaria in Germany). But referendums also have disadvantages. They may confront an electorate completely unversed in a particular area of the law with the need to make a decision.54 Even when this is not the case, they do not always lead to adequate consideration being given to issues. 55 They are also capable of producing answers to questions other than those asked. Hence Roberts-Thomson has opined that European Treaty referendums in particular, because of the way they are presented to electorates, rather than being used for “legitimating major changes…are increasingly becoming periodic votes of confidence in continued membership of the European Union.” 56 The same writer has pointed out that such referendums are also prone to becoming “inextricably tied up with public attitudes towards the incumbent government. If these governments are unpopular, then the likelihood increases of referendums being used as a means of expressing public dissatisfaction with extraneous domestic ills.” 57 52 See for an examination of the use of European treaty referendums (and the drawing of distinctions between different kinds of such referendum), P. Roberts-Thomson, “EU Treaty Referendums and the European Union” (2001) 23 Journal of European Integration 105. Cf. M. Cahill, “Ireland’s Constitutional Amendability and Europe’s Constitutional Ambition: the Lisbon Referendum in Context” (2008) 9 German Law Journal 1191. Different forms of European treaty referendum are also distinguished in M. Shu, “Referendums and the Political Constitution of the EU” (2008) 14 European Law Journal 423. 53 See for an example of this the arguments of one Eurosceptical campaign group at http://www.nationalplatform.org/wordpress/?page_id=67 and http://www.nationalplatform.org/wordpress/?tag=treaty-of- lisbon-irish-referendum 54 According to the impressively comprehensive Government-commissioned Millward Brown IMS Post Lisbon Treaty Research Findings (Dublin, September, 2008, at p. 12 thereof) “the key (spontaneous) factor behind the No vote was a lack of understanding of the Treaty, which is mentioned by 45% of No voters. Indeed, 65% of soft No voters cite this reason, clearly indicating that lack of knowledge was the deciding issue in the campaign.” 55 Ackerman and Fishkin have argued that referendums involve “the people going to the polls to say Yes or No without taking preliminary steps to deliberate together on the choices facing the nation”, and offered the view that “this populist method is unworthy of a modern democracy. If an issue is important enough to warrant decision by the people as a whole, it is important enough to require a more deliberate approach to decision-making.” See B. Ackerman and J. Fishkin, “A Better Way With Referendums” Financial Times, 17 June, 2008. Note also the criticisms of Alain Lamassoure MEP reported in J. Smyth, “Ireland Risks Splitting EU, Says Advisor to Sarkozy” 4 July, 2008. 56 P. Roberts-Thomson, loc. cit., n. 59 at 121. 57 Loc. cit., n. 59 at 123. 14 which was confined to extolling forcibly the benefits of an affirmative vote, it would be improper for the courts to express any view on such a decision.” 66 The considerable limitations which the judicial arena imposes in relation to such decision-making were also adverted to by Costello J.: “The object of such a campaign would, of course, be to influence voters' attitudes. But to adjudicate on a claim that the use of public funds to finance such a campaign was unfair because it distorted public attitudes would involve an assessment of the effect of such a campaign on public attitudes, the strength of the opposing campaign of those propounding a "No" vote, and the forces influencing the voters' ultimate decision. Such an assessment is not just one of establishing facts but calls for a careful analysis and a balancing of complex political and social factors. It is one for political analysts to make, not for judges.” 67 Had this analysis been reflected in subsequent Supreme Court case-law, the future path of the European Union and the future nature of Ireland’s involvement in it might look somewhat clearer and indeed less precarious at this moment in time. This did not happen, however. Undeterred by her initial setback, the same plaintiff sought to have the Courts revisit “precisely the same issue” 68 in McKenna (No. 2). This case was brought in the context not of a referendum on a European Treaty but that of the referendum seeking to remove the constitutional prohibition on divorce. But clearly the outcome of McKenna (No. 2) was always inevitably going to have a major impact in referendums on European treaties [given that the State has a particular concern and would inevitably seek to play an active role in seeing the ratification of such Treaties]. At first instance, McKenna’s claim was dismissed by Keane J. in the High Court. Keane J. pointed out what the Constitution has to say expressly regarding the executive’s role in a referendum – i.e., nothing at all: “there is no guidance in the wording of Article 46 as to the role, if any, to be played by the Government in the holding of a referendum, other than what may be gleaned from the requirement that the referendum be held ‘in accordance with the law for the time being in force relating to the referendum’.” 69 The only other constitutional provisions referred to by Keane J. were Articles 17 and 28 dealing with, respectively, the relative roles of the Government and the Dáil in relation to expenditure. Keane J. was in no doubt about the need to defer to the other branches of Government in this regard, observing: “these provisions are at the heart of the structures of parliamentary democracy which we have inherited, recognising as they do the primary role of the executive and the popularly elected assembly, to which it is responsible, in the raising and expenditure of monies. The extent to which, and the manner in which, the revenue and borrowing powers of the State are exercised and the purposes for which the funds are spent are the perennial subject of political debate and controversy, but the paramount role of those two organs of state, the Government and the Dáil, in this area is beyond question. For the courts to review decisions in this area by the Government or Dáil Éireann would be for them to assume a role which is exclusively entrusted to those organs of state, and one which the courts are conspicuously ill-quipped to undertake. While the expenditure by the Government of £500,000 in this case has given rise to debate and controversy, it is not the function of the courts under the Constitution to enter into, still less, purport to resolve such disputes.” 70 66 [1995] 2 IR 1 at 6. 67 [1995] 2 IR 1 at 6. 68 See the High Court ruling of Keane J. (as he then was) in McKenna v. An Taoiseach (No. 2) [1995] 2 IR 10 at 18. 69 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 17. 70 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 18. 15 On appeal, however, this degree of judicial deference failed to manifest itself: the judgment of Keane J. was reversed and the Supreme Court granted a declaration that the Government, in expending public monies in the promotion of a particular result in a referendum was acting in breach of the Constitution. The Court divided 4-1 in favour of this result with Hamilton CJ, O’Flaherty J., Blayney J. and Denham J. all in the majority. Egan J. dissented alone in a terse, vigorous ruling that asserted the right of the Government to express strong views even if the result might be to influence voters and based his conclusion that it could spend money on the referendum because there was no specific constitutional or statutory provision preventing it from doing so. He concluded that it was “a matter solely for the executive arm of government to decided how the money [apportioned by it for the referendum campaign] should be expended. Its decision is not for the scrutiny of the judicial branch of government.” The reasoning underlying the judgment of the majority was founded on the majority’s interpretation of the requirements of (a) equality (b) democracy and (c) fairness. Insofar as concerns equality,71 all of the majority felt that this would be violated by allowing such expenditure. Hence O’Flaherty J. asserted that “to spend money in this way breaches the equality rights of the citizen enshrined in the Constitution as well as having the effect of putting the voting rights of one class of citizen (those in favour of the change) above those of another class of citizen (those against).” 72 Blayney J. objected that “the Government has not held the scales equally between those who support and those who oppose the amendment. It has thrown its weight behind those who support it.” 73 Most clearly of all, Denham J. pointed out that Article. 40.1 stated that all citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. She opined that “this recognises the equality of citizens. It also requires the organs of government in the execution of their powers to have due regard to the right of equality. The citizen has the right to be treated equally. This includes the concept that in the democratic process, including referenda, neither side of an issue will be favoured, treated unequally, by the government.” 74 This seems problematic on at least two grounds. The first is that it makes no mention of the limitation in Article 40.1 that citizens shall, ‘as human persons’ be held equal before the law.75 The second is that saying that neither side of an issue will be favoured seems to create the rather strange notion of ideas having a right to equal treatment. Yet as Barrington J. pointed out in his dissenting judgment in the subsequent Coughlan case, “the equality referred to in Article 40 of the Irish Constitution is an equality of persons, not an equality of ideas. Ideas have no rights under our Constitution or otherwise because rights (including political rights) pertain to persons not to ideas.” 76 Furthermore, ideas can be wrong. Statements can and have been issued in the course of referendum campaigns which are misleading or even untruthful and yet have succeed in gaining a foothold in the popular imagination of an electorate unversed through no fault of its own in the intricacies of European law and governance – something which became a serious problem in the 71 The impact of McKenna (No. 2) insofar as concerns the constitutional guarantee of equality has been significant. O’Dowd describes the case as having ‘cast a long shadow’ over most case-law concerning political rights, particularly those connected with referendums and elections. (Loc. cit., n. 13 at 1.) 72 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 43. O’Flaherty J. immediately added that “the public purse must not be expended to espouse a point of view which may be anathema to certain citizens who, of necessity, have contributed to it.” As an argument in its own right, this seems unconvincing. As O’ Dowd has asked, “are parents (or any other taxpayer for that matter) constitutionally entitled to object to particular sex education programmes, even if they have the right to withhold their children from them? Are those who value personal freedom particularly highly entitled to restrain health promotion campaigns which are contrary to their personal convictions?” (Loc. cit.,n. 13 at 19.) 73 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 50. 74 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 52 75 See for some reflections on this issue, O’ Dowd, loc. cit., n. 13, and see more generally on the subject of constitutional equality, O. Doyle, Constitutional Equality Law (Thomson Round Hall, Dublin, 2004). 76 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 45. 16 course of the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign.77 The value of freedom of expression is nonetheless not to be doubted. The application of a Supreme Court-imposed ‘equality of ideas’ approach in this context - deployed so as to negate the influence of a democratically-elected government - seems deeply problematic. Insofar as concerns democracy, O’ Flaherty J. observed (somewhat remarkably given that this view had been rejected in two separate High Court rulings 78) that he thought it “bordering on the self- evident that in a democracy such as is enshrined in our Constitution…it is impermissible for the Government to spend public money in the course of a referendum campaign to benefit one side rather that the other.” 79 Denham J. also felt that “in referenda the People vote on the proposed amendment. Such vote must be free.” 80 She asserted that spending public funds would infringe “the right to a democratic process in referenda.” “Ireland is a democratic state. The citizen is entitled under the Constitution to a democratic process. The citizen is entitled to a democracy free from governmental intercession with the process, no matter how well intentioned. No branch of the government is entitled to use taxpayers’ monies from the Central Fund to intercede with the democratic process either as to the voting process or as to the campaign prior to the vote. This is an implied right pursuant to Article 40, s. 3 which harmonises with Article 5, Article 6, s. 1, Article 16, Article 40, s. 1, Article 47, s. 3 and is in keeping with the democratic nature of Bunreacht na hÉireann.” 81 Such a view, however, arguably makes too little of the role of the elected Government which forms part and parcel of every democracy, and which far from being seen as ‘interceding’ in a referendum process ought arguably to have an important leadership role to play. In any referendum, it is to be expected one campaigner (or group of campaigners) will, in the end, succeed in the aim exercising the most persuasive force. All McKenna (No. 2) ensures is that the entity which arguably has the most democratic legitimacy claim to play this role – the elected Government – is largely prevented from doing so, and effectively emasculated in its leadership role. The ruling goes a considerable distance to privatising the referendum process. The Government is forbidden to exert influence. But anyone else may. Denham J.’s judgment in this regard was prefaced by her observation that “The Constitution envisaged a government wherein there is a separation of powers between the legislative, executive and and judicial organs of government. They operate a system of checks and balances on each other. All three are subject to the Constitution, which recognises that the fundamental power rests in the People. The Constitution envisages a true democracy: the rule of the People. This case is about the constitutional relationship of the People to their government. 77 See e.g., the complaints in this regard by Michael D’Arcy TD in the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, 18 November, 2008 available online at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/CommitteeMenu.aspx?Dail=30&Cid=CN The level of public concern whipped up by erroneous assertions by the anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign led the Irish Government to seek (and receive) assurances from the Brussels European Council of 11-12 December 2008 that legal guarantees would be provided prior to any second Irish referendum, in relation to a number of matters in relation to which fears had been created, notwithstanding the fact that the Lisbon Treaty in reality poses no threat to these interests, even without such guarantees. 78 It is also a view not reflected in the law of, for example, Denmark - which also has referendums as part of its democratic structure. 79 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 42. 80 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 52. See the observations below concerning Blayney J’s judgment. 81 [1995] 2 IR 10 at 53-54. See also in this regard the ruling of O’Flaherty J [1995] 2 IR 10 at 43. 19 claim on public trust and confidence than does a democratically-elected government have had to take up the baton.92 (Civil society groups could also intervene, but in practice intervention in this form in the Lisbon Treaty debate was largely (although not exclusively) populated by groups occupying the extremes of the political spectrum, opposed to, rather than supporting the Government position). The difficulty is that political parties are less well equipped for the task of winning a referendum than is a Government. In the first place, they lack the moral authority of an elected Government. Secondly (and this is particularly the case given the executive-dominated nature of Irish politics) their membership may lack expertise in European matters. Thirdly, the raison d’être of political parties is to fight elections rather than referendum campaigns.93 Placing the burden of winning a referendum on political parties makes the unrealistic demand of Opposition parties that they cast self-interest aside and campaign on behalf of the Government. Yet supporters of Opposition political parties have little incentive beyond the broader national interest to assist the Government even when in agreement that a Treaty should be ratified. They will find themselves in a difficult position regardless of whether the referendum succeeds (in which case the Government will collect much of the credit) or fails. Although all three of the major Irish political parties officially favoured a ‘yes’ vote regarding the Lisbon Treaty, serious questions were raised concerning how hard any of them campaigned,94 and it could hardly have come as a surprise when, post-referendum, the comprehensive Government- commissioned Milward Brown IMS study revealed radical divergences in support for the Treaty among supporters of the different political parties.95 As for the Referendum Commission 96 - set up in successive referendums with a primary role limited to that of merely of explaining the subject matter of referendum proposals, promoting public awareness of the referendum and encouraging the electorate to vote - the impossibility (thanks to McKenna (No. 2)) of allowing this body to take sides means it can not replace the Government in the function of explaining the advantages of a negotiated Treaty to the public. It has therefore never been a replacement for the Government in any real sense. Furthermore, although the Referendum Commission has provided valuable information in the course of a succession of referendum campaigns, it has undeniably encountered serious difficulties in winning public confidence in more than one referendum, and the referendum concerning the Treaty of Lisbon was a case in point in this respect.97 Reflections on an Appropriate Legislative Reaction to McKenna (No. 2) 92 Nonetheless, a major role for political parties was clearly envisaged by Denham J. in her judgment in Coughlan, where she observed that “it is entirely correct in a democracy that political parties inform people of their views and campaign on the issue [i.e., in a referendum]. State funding may be allocated to enable a full debate and expended in a fair and constitutional fashion.” ([2000] 3 IR 1 at 31.) 93 See in this regard M. Shu, “Referendums and the Political Constitution of the EU” (2008) 14 European Law Journal 423. 94 See e.g., M. Hennessy, “Opposition Parties Slow to Get Fully Behind Yes Campaign”, Irish Times, 27 May, 2008. 95 Amongst the main political parties, 63% of Fianna Fáil supporters voted for the Treaty, 52% of Fine Gael supporters in favour of it. Labour Party supporters and Green Party supporters voted against the Treaty by margins of 61% and 53% respectively as did Sinn Féin supporters, who voted no by a majority of 88%. (See Post Lisbon Treaty Research Findings (Millward Brown IMS, Dublin, September, 2008). 96 In March, 2008, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government made the Referendum Commission (Establishment) Order 2008 (Statutory Instrument No. 58 of 2008) under the Referendum Act 1998 (as amended by the Referendum Act 2001) establishing an independent statutory Referendum Commission for the purposes of the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. A High Court judge was then appointed to act as its Chairperson with the other members of the Commission being the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Ombudsman, the Clerk of the Dáil and the Clerk of the Seanad. Remarkably, no expert either in European law or media relations was appointed to its ranks – which may help to explain the Commission’s less-than-impressive performance of its task in the 2008 referendum campaign. The Commission itself complained that it was not given enough time to prepare its information campaign. (See in this regard, P. Leahy, “Commission: Not Enough Time to Inform Public on Lisbon Treaty”, Sunday Business Post, 1 February, 2009.) The Commission’s website is www.lisbontreaty2008.ie/ 97 See further H. McGee, “Awareness Raising Campaign is Defended”, Irish Times, June 16, 2008. 20 Whatever view one takes of the correctness of the majority view of the needs of equality, democracy, fairness etc, it is clear that once McKenna (No. 2) was applied to state action, that none of these interests could possibly be adequately served without a legislative riposte enforcing a prohibition on private financial intervention in a referendum campaign beyond minimal levels – including in the form of loans to campaigning groups.98 A level playing pitch between both sides in a referendum campaign can be just as easily disrupted by large-scale private financial intervention as by the kind of governmental financial intervention which the Supreme Court majority in McKenna (No. 2) seemed to find so objectionable. It also seems clear that - just like competition law - such legislative intervention, in order to have any hope of being effective would have to be properly enforced by a body equipped with adequate investigative, injunctive and other legal powers. The relevant norms must also be capable of timely enforcement. There is little point in having (as at present) campaign finance rules which purport to be enforced on the basis of accounts delivered only months after the referendum has taken place, since such rules make it possible for behaviour in breach of the relevant rules to influence the outcome of the poll. Notwithstanding the enactment of the Electoral Act, 1997 and the Electoral (Amendment) Acts, 2001 and 2002 and the creation of the Standards in Public Office Commission, no adequate such framework has ever been put in place. Without such a legislative response, the ruling of the majority in McKenna (No. 2) takes one no closer to equality, however. Rather, it merely hobbles the biggest player on the pitch – in this case the democratically-elected government - making way for a new biggest player to take its place. Overall, the result of the combination of judicial activism in McKenna (No. 2) and subsequent legislative lethargy has been the crippling of the power of democratically-elected governments to intervene in any effective sense in a referendum campaign, whilst private parties with no democratic mandate whatsoever suffer no equivalent such comprehensive disadvantage. The consequences have been predictable. In the context of the 2008 Lisbon referendum, McKenna (No. 2) and the failure to react adequately to it may be regarded as having constituted a significant factor in the emergence of Libertas as a considerable force in the referendum campaign – a corporate entity with no electoral mandate whatsoever, which seemed largely to represent the political views of one individual, also without any electoral mandate. Coughlan v. Broadcasting Complaints Commission and RTÉ 99 Coughlan is the next Supreme Court case which is of relevance in the present context. The case – brought by a well-known Eurosceptical campaigner – took place in the context of the referendum on removing the constitutional prohibition on divorce, although it is worth noting that proceedings were brought two years after the divorce referendum was held, the High Court ruling was delivered three years after this event and the Supreme Court ruling five years later. Plainly, if the proceedings were successful, their implications for European integration were likely to be more significant than their implications for Irish family law – notwithstanding the fact that at least one of the Supreme Court judges ascribed “great force”, in reaching his conclusions, to an argument rooted in the very particular circumstances of the divorce referendum.100 98 Loans were availed of extensively by Libertas, a previously unknown corporate entity which largely represented the views of one individual (Anglo-Irish multi-millionaire Declan Ganley) and which mounted a remarkably well-resourced campaign on the ‘no’ side in the 2008 referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. (See C. Keena, “Substantial Amount of Funding for Libertas Came from Ganley”, Irish Times, October 3, 2008.) 99 [2000] 3 IR 1. 100 O’ Flaherty J., noting that the referendum to remove the constitutional prohibition on divorce involved the same concept as had been involved in the (unsuccessful) referendum of 1986, observed that “the argument advanced on behalf of the plaintiff is to say that in the light of that background the Government has all the greater obligation to make sure that public money is not used to promote one side to the exclusion of the other. I think there is great force in this argument…” (See [1995] 2 IR 10 at 45.) 21 The case arrived before the Supreme Court in the form of an appeal by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and RTÉ, the national broadcasting service, against the High Court decision of Carney J. to grant an order of certiorari quashing a decision by the Commission – viz., its decision to dismiss the applicant’s complaints and to declare that in relation to the divorce referendum of 1995 the allocation of uncontested broadcasting time to each side of the argument had been significantly unequal and thereby constitutionally unfair. The alleged imbalance had been remarkably small – and entirely caused by the desire of RTÉ to recognise the role of political parties in the democratic process. As explained with great clarity by Barrington J. in his judgment “approximately 98% of the broadcast coverage of the campaign was monitored by [RTÉ] to ensure that a proper balance was kept between the advocates and the opponents of the divorce proposal. This case is concerned with the balance of the coverage amounting to just over 2%. This 2% is referred to - somewhat misleadingly - as the ‘uncontested’ broadcasts. It consists of two uncontested broadcasts from ad hoc campaign groups advocating a ‘Yes’ vote and two uncontested broadcasts from ad hoc groups advocating a ‘No’ vote. Each side received a total allotment of ten minutes so that if one looks at the ad hoc groups alone the time allotted was equal. But the second respondent also carried ten political party broadcasts amounting to thirty minutes in all. It so happened that all the political parties favoured a ‘Yes’ vote so that if one takes the aggregate of the ‘uncontested’ broadcasts forty minutes (or 80% of the time) was given to those who advocated a ‘Yes’ vote and only ten minutes (or 20% of the time) was given to those who advocated a ‘No’ vote. Whether it is correct in law to aggregate the ‘uncontested’ broadcasts in this way is one of the matters in dispute in these proceedings.” 101 As it turned out, the Supreme Court majority did aggregate the ‘uncontested’ broadcasts in this way, to this extent equating the largest and most representative political parties with the smallest and most unrepresentative pressure group. Ultimately the Court in Coughlan split 4-1 with Hamilton C.J., Denham J., Keane J. (as he then was) and Barron J. dismissing the appeal against the ruling of Carney J. and Barrington J. penning a masterful but solitary dissenting opinion. Coughlan – Both Statute Law Interpretation and Constitutional Interpretation Coughlan involved issues of both Constitutional and statute law. Indeed one of the four majority judgments (that of Barron J.) made no reference to anything other than statutory matters.102 Even though the effects of some of the rulings concerning the correct interpretation of the legislation are still with us, it is obviously the Constitutional findings in Coughlan which are of the most importance, since barring a constitutional amendment or a change of mind by the Supreme Court, 101 [2000] 3 I.R. 1 at 34 102 At issue in Coughlan were, apart from the constitutional issues concerned, certain statutory questions, in particular concerning s. 18 of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960. Sub-section 1 of this imposed on RTÉ the duty to ensure that news broadcast by it be reported and presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of [RTÉ’s] own views and further that the broadcast treatment of current affairs be fair to all interests concerned and broadcast matter be presented objectively and impartially and without any expression of the Authority’s own views. Sub- section 2 of s. 18 stated that ‘nothing in this section shall prevent [RTÉ] from transmitting party political broadcasts.’ Notwithstanding the breadth of the wording of s. 18(2), Keane J (with whom Hamilton CJ and Denham J agreed) held that s. 18(2) did not liberate RTÉ from the s. 18(1) duty to be fair to all interests concerned when it came to allocating uncontested broadcasts (as opposed to determining their content). (Over and above this, Keane J. noted that a constitutional duty not to discriminate between political parties had been identified in State (Lynch) v. Cooney [1982] IR 337). As is noted above, Barron J who formed part of the majority, based his ruling exclusively on an interpretation of the 1960 Act as amended. He declined to consider constitutional issues or the meaning to be given to equality (although his ruling, questioning the balancing of political parties rather than the substance of broadcasts, demanding ‘impartiality’ between the interests involved in a referendum, objecting to ‘the imbalance in favour of’ one side of the referendum seems nonetheless clearly based on a ‘50-50’ approach to equality). 24 an important part of that process. In contrast, in a referendum the process is one of direct legislation. It is an alternative approach to legislation by elected representatives. Consequently, the role of elected representatives is different.” 117 Denham J. further observed on this differing role: “the presentation of the issue to the public is different to the presentation in an election. The referendum procedure established under the Constitution is an exercise in direct democracy. However, the process commences in the legislature. There the political parties have a key role. There is initial control of the process by the legislature. Thus, the referendum machinery is not a threat to the system of representative democracy. However, once the process leaves the Dáil and Seanad, the institutions of representative democracy, it is a tool of direct democracy and the system should be fair, equal and impartial.” 118 Denham J.’s vision is notable for two points. First, it is one in which a reduced role for political parties is explicitly envisaged once the referendum process ‘leaves the Dáil and Seanad’. a vision in which equality and impartiality between both sides of the referendum are given the highest priority regardless of how rudderless this leaves the ship of state, and according no special respect or privilege whatsoever for democratically-elected governments and politicians regardless of how many voters they represent. Secondly, this is a vision which corresponds closely with the way in which referendums now operate in Ireland, which thus far from being an accidental development seems to be the fulfilment of the vision of democracy envisaged by the Supreme Court in Coughlan. Thirdly, it is worth observing that this view of democracy finds no express support in the text of the Constitution. For a vision which has turned out to be of such fundamental importance in redrawing Irish constitutional architecture, it is also unsupported, it must be said, by reference to any theory of democracy, to any examination of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution regarding the conduct of referendums, to any reference (in Ireland or elsewhere) of the actual historical conduct of referendums or by any comparative analysis. (The only case-law cited in this regard by Denham J. – who deserves credit as the only judge who attempted to provide an underlying model of what a referendum process should involve - were the Supreme Court’s own then-recent decisions in McKenna (No. 2) and Hanafin v. Minister for the Environment.119 These judgments, however, take one no further in the search for any such textual, historical, analytical or comparative support.) Ultimately, what one is left with is a highly contestable model of democracy constructed on the flimsiest of foundations by the Supreme Court. More than this (or alternatively, more deference to the other branches of government) ought surely to have been expected. Finally, insofar as concerns Denham J.’s assertion that “the process commences in the legislature. There the political parties have a key role. There is initial control of the process by the legislature,” this is not an accurate account of matters insofar as concerns referendums on European Treaties where the process does not commence in anything but the formal sense before the legislature. It commences with the legislature being forced to hold a referendum, regardless of how desirable they feel such a step is, by virtue of Articles 29.4.10°, Article 46, and (crucially) the Supreme Court judgment in Crotty. The vision advanced by Denham J., but also by Hamilton C.J. 120 and implicitly by Keane J.121 stands in marked distinction to that espoused by Barrington J. in dissent, who argued convincingly that: 117 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 30. (Emphasis added.) 118 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 30-31. 119 [1996] 2 IR 321. 120 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 26. 121 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 54 25 “when it comes to advising the people on a major political decision the principal role must rest with their political leaders. A distinguishing feature of a democratic society is that political leadership rests, not on power, but on persuasion. Likewise political authority rests on the consent of the electorate. It is right and appropriate that political leaders should use their authority and the arts of persuasion to lead the people towards the decision which their judgment tells them will best promote the common good. For [RTÉ] to attempt to neutralise the advice of political leaders would be to subvert the democratic values which it is directed to uphold.” 122 Again “when the people are performing the ultimate act of sovereignty it is clearly right and proper that the views of all citizens should, so far as practicable, be heard. But it is also right and proper that the special position of political leaders should be recognised. In my view there is, in principle, no constitutional inequality or unfairness and no breach of democratic values in allowing political leaders access to the airwaves at referendum time on conditions dissimilar to those granted to private citizens but related to their social function as political leaders of the people.” 123 Party Political Broadcasts and Other Uncontested Broadcasts – Accepted Comparability Both Keane J. and Hamilton J. noted that no complaint had been made concerning the news and current affairs programmes, in respect of which approximately equal time had been allocated: merely in relation to the time allocated for party political broadcasts (which constituted 2% of the total coverage of the divorce referendum campaign). In respect of party political broadcasts, the five largest parties were allowed to make such broadcasts with time allocated by reference to numerical strength in the Dáil. Similar facilities were then allocated to groups campaigning respectively for a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ vote. The end result was that 40 minutes of broadcasting time were allocated to those campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote and 10 minutes to those campaigning for a ‘no’ vote. All of the four judges in the majority seemed happy to regard as comparable the forty minutes allocated to those campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote with the ten allocated to those campaigning for a ‘no’ vote, thereby treating all ‘uncontested’ broadcasts as equal. Only Barrington J. raised the question of whether it was correct in law to aggregate such broadcasts in this way – effectively raising the special role of political parties in political life, and the question of whether the requirement to treat like situations alike but unlike situations in an unlike manner was met by treating all ‘uncontradicted broadcasts’ alike.124 The majority made no such distinction in favour of political parties. A number of further observations can be made about the ruling of the Supreme Court in Coughlan. 1. The Coughlan ruling was directed only at uncontested broadcasts (including party political broadcasts), since no complaint was made in relation to any other kind of broadcast. In practice, since Coughlan, party political broadcasts in referendum situations have indeed come to and end – arguably depriving political parties of an important means of exerting influence. Hence for example the April 2008 Broadcasting Commission of Ireland Guidelines in Respect of Coverage of the Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon and Related Constitutional Amendments 125 instructed broadcasters not to transmit party political broadcasts during the first Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign. 122 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 45. 123 [2000] 3 IR 1 at 46. 124 See [2000] 3 IR 1 at 34. 125 Available at the time of writing at http://www.bci.ie/documents/Treaty%20of%20Lisbon%20Referendum%20Guidelines%202008%20(Final).doc 26 2. The reasoning and standards deployed by the Supreme Court in reaching its conclusions in Coughlan have relevance to other kinds of broadcast however. An argument can be made that the observations made which are relevant to broadcasts other than party political broadcasts are obiter dicta (i.e., an incidental or supplementary opinion offered upon a matter not essential to the decision, and therefore not binding as precedent) rather than the ratio decidendi (the legal principle upon which the decision was founded, binding on all inferior courts). However, it is not entirely clear that this is a correct view since they do represent the reasoning from which the Court in Coughlan arrived at its conclusions on uncontested broadcasts. The observations of the Court in this regard are at a minimum the best guide that we have in relation to the law concerning these other kinds of broadcast. A cautious approach to fulfilment of a broadcaster’s obligations in a referendum in relation to these other kinds of broadcast will thus lead to a ‘50-50’ allotment of time between campaigners in favour of constitutional change and campaigners against it. In practice, this is exactly what is happening in the broadcast media in Ireland.126 Once again (like funding rules) inadequately modulated to date by subsequent legislative intervention, and implemented by broadcasters who must take seriously the need to comply with legal obligations, and therefore are always likely to take the safe option in terms of complying with balance requirements, the effect of Coughlan has been to create a situation in which broadcasters feel constrained to give 50% of airtime to both sides of a referendum campaign. The overall consequence of this ‘50-50’ approach has been to nullify any advantage that elected office-holders such as the Taoiseach, the leader of the Opposition, or the leader of a major party such as the Labour Party might be expected to enjoy by virtue of their position and to nullify any advantage elected politicians or major political parties would expect vis à vis politicians who have received no electoral mandate or support whatsoever and private undertakings – like Libertas - who had no mandate in the 2008 referendum to represent anybody other than whatever individual or individuals controlled them. It has arguably also assisted in creating a false impression that informed elected opinion is evenly split about the Treaty being voted on when this is anything but the truth. In addition, as the evidence of the Treaty of Lisbon campaign shows, the ‘50-50’ approach can assist in bestowing of the aura of a mass movement to what is in fact merely a corporate entity. In practice, the ‘50-50’ rule creates a perverse political incentive to oppose Constitutional amendments on European treaties. A politician who supports such an amendment will normally find him- or herself occupying a crowded field of experienced politicians jostling for the maximum of 50% of the airtime guaranteed to the ‘yes’ side. A politician who opposes the amendment occupies a much less crowded space populated by much less experienced political actors. For the ‘no’ side, the 50% operates more as a minimum guarantee. The result is predictable. The electoral fortunes of the hardline nationalist Sinn Féin party improved considerably in 2008, buoyed by access to the airwaves on an otherwise undreamt-of scale given to it simply because it opposed the Lisbon Treaty.127 It may be observed in passing that the since the Coughlan ruling has no application to the printed media, it requires no even-handedness there. And in respect of large numbers of newspapers sold in Ireland every day, there is no even-handedness. Numerous publications, many (although not all) based in United Kingdom, and reflecting a United Kingdom perspective, campaign vehemently against the European Union. Formerly their influence might have been counterbalanced by the broadcast media. But since the Coughlan ruling, this no longer happens. 126 See generally here the evidence given to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, 11 November, 2008) (particularly that given on behalf of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland and commercial broadcasters such as Newstalk and TV3)(available online at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=CNJ20081111.XML&Ex=All&Page=3). See also F. Gartland, “No Equal Airtime for Referendum ‘Required’”, Irish Times, 12 November, 2008. 127 See D. de Breadún, “Nothing Ruled Out As Sinn Féin Focuses on a Greater Future Role”, Irish Times, 20 February, 2009.