Gay Mitchell nearly loosing it on RTE

BizzyLizzy

Myth wrote: »

I think it was mentioned on another thread that they could go along with it, although they would then risk a court case based on the Crotty ruling.

Spot on:

"Supreme Court decision in Crotty v. Ireland in 1987, exposes Irish governments to significant political and legal risks if they do not refer significant European Union Treaties to a referendum, regardless of the appropriateness of doing so. "

thecoolfreak

Myth wrote: »

I think it was mentioned on another thread that they could go along with it, although they would then risk a court case based on the Crotty ruling.

Exactly, they could have passed this Treaty by Statute as it doesn't change the esseintial objectives of the Union. The Crotty decision allows for this and therefore no referendum would be needed. However, by doing this the governemnt could have opened itself to a case similar to Crotty and if the Supreme Court were to rule that the Treaty couldn't have been passed by Statute then we and the EU would be in limbo. Remember though that Crotty was decided by a bare 3:2 majority and that decision could easily be reversed if a similar action were taken.

iPoker

obl wrote: »

It's hardly undemocratic to put it to us again, after all, only ~28% of the electorate voted no.

Cumpolsary poll atentendence ftw!

compulsory vote? he have the right, but not the obligation, to vote....constitutionally. Moreover, not voting is preferable to a "yes" or "no" vote by someone who doesn't understand what they are voting for.

CerebralCortex

SeanW wrote: »

Are you sure? How many No voters read the Treaty, reviewed the 28th Amendment to the Constitution Bill (which was technically the point of the referendum) and said to themselves: "I have a problem with provision X of part Y of the Porposed Amendment" or "I don't think Article X, Section Y, Subsection Z of the Treaty presents the right way forward for Ireland or the people of Europe" before putting an X in the "No" box?

The same question could be asked of the Yes campaign.

mike65

Bump, still in :eek:OMG:eek: mode now on Today Fm with Matt Cooper

Mike.

CtrlSource

Wonder if someone could fix him up with horse tranquilizers or something

ShooterSF

obl wrote: »

It's hardly undemocratic to put it to us again, after all, only ~28% of the electorate voted no.

Cumpolsary poll atentendence ftw!

Ok, and are you pushing for a re vote in nice2 then? It was around, if not less of a turnout? Or is it just the results that you don't like?

tolosenc

iPoker wrote: »

compulsory vote? he have the right, but not the obligation, to vote....constitutionally. Moreover, not voting is preferable to a "yes" or "no" vote by someone who doesn't understand what they are voting for.

Yeah, but the number of people who don't vote out of pure laziness is disgraceful. Just add an extra box to the ballot labelled "Abstain" - and then put like a €1500 fine for unreturned polling cards. Of course, excusable by doctor's note etc

ShooterSF wrote: »

Ok, and are you pushing for a re vote in nice2 then? It was around, if not less of a turnout? Or is it just the results that you don't like?

I'm merely pointing out that to call it undemocratic is a stretch of the truth. If all of the aforementioned lazy people would have voted yes - then in reality we have a 72%-28% situation, with the 28% winning.

And it's rather a different story to vote to un-change the constitution.

ShooterSF

obl wrote: »

Yeah, but the number of people who don't vote out of pure laziness is disgraceful. Just add an extra box to the ballot labelled "Abstain" - and then put like a €1500 fine for unreturned polling cards. Of course, excusable by doctor's note etc

I actually agree with you here and have said this before.

I'm merely pointing out that to call it undemocratic is a stretch of the truth. If all of the aforementioned lazy people would have voted yes - then in reality we have a 72%-28% situation, with the 28% winning.

And it's rather a different story to vote to un-change the constitution.

Dont think of un-changing it. Think of it as just changing again, admittedly in reverse. I too was just making the point that people are just ,generally, using the turnout issue to force a re-vote on a result their unhappy about. If you truly believe you're asking for a re-vote on turnout, not on the result, I'd expect you to be equally outraged about Nice2 passing, no offence.

ionix5891

ShooterSF wrote: »

I actually agree with you here and have said this before.



Dont think of un-changing it. Think of it as just changing again, admittedly in reverse. I too was just making the point that people are just ,generally, using the turnout issue to force a re-vote on a result their unhappy about. If you truly believe you're asking for a re-vote on turnout, not on the result, I'd expect you to be equally outraged about Nice2 passing, no offence.

if more than 50% of the people on this island call for a revote on anything how is that undemocratic?