Why are we discussing the treaty and not the actual amendment to the constitution?

g11

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oscarBravo

How does the proposed amendment differ substantively from the existing article 29.4.10?

Scofflaw

g11 wrote: »

Regarding the "Sticky" at the top of this forum entitled, "A concise summary of the Fiscal Compact", I hope you will agree that, for completeness, any concise summary should also include the wording of the actual constitutional amendment itself.

This omission is not limited to this website, it seems bizarre to me that the Government could spend public money on printing two fancy two leaflets and distributing them to every house in the country, yet neither leaflet contains the actual wording of the amendment which we are being asked to vote on.

Here is the wording on the amendment, which, if passed, will add a new subsection 10 to article 29.4 of the Constitution, as follows:

"The State may ratify the Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union done at Brussels on the 2nd day of March 2012. No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of the State under that Treaty or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by bodies competent under that Treaty from having the force of law in the State."

Now, I think this wording deserves discussion, for example, regarding
"No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted ... by bodies competent under that Treaty",
I have the following questions:

1. What does "bodies competent under that Treaty" mean?

The various bodies given roles to play in the Treaty.

g11 wrote: »

2. Could these bodies be outside the State?

Yes - the Commission and the Council rather obviously are, as is the CJEU.

g11 wrote: »

3. Are we agreeing that any future laws made by these bodies shall be exempt from constitutional challenge?

No. The test is actually rather trickier, and isn't really the blanket exemption it seems to be at first sight.

g11 wrote: »

4. If so, why are we agreeing to waive our constitutional rights in such a vague way?

We're not.

g11 wrote: »

5. Why was this wording left out of the publicly-funded booklets distributed to every household?

It wasn't. It's on page 7.

g11 wrote: »

6. Why is there lots of public discussion about the treaty, but little or none about the core of the referendum, the actual amendment to our constitution?

From the Yes side's point of view, probably because it's a pretty standard amendment, from the No side's point of view quite a lot of campaigners want to pretend that we're putting the fiscal limits into the Constitution. However, it has been discussed on other threads, and if you need longer answers to your questions, I can dig up the answers given on those other threads.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

deja vu?

2009

2008

g11

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BlitzKrieg

Previous amendments related to EU Treaties and contained the words "European Union". It's different this time, this amendment is not in the context of an EU Treaty and does not contain the words "European Union". Instead, it refers only to "bodies competent under the Treaty".

All prior treaties were structural treaties for the entire European Union, this is not.

Normally with a structural treaty the new one replaces the old one with some slight alteration to the text to reflect changes of the structure (such as the removal of the term European Communities between Nice and Lisbon) etc.

Since this is an individual treaty between members of the EU it is a seperate entity.

The Role of the european union with the Irish state is established 29.4.6

The role of the European Union with the Structural Treaty is established in article 1 (I think or it might be article 2)

Since both documents have it in writing that they abide by the European Union individually then all that is left to confirm in the constitution is that the Irish state will abide by what has been outlined in the stability treaty.

Aside from that the writing is standard international treaty agreement terms, there is nothing that can have a sinister twist put on it.

Scofflaw

g11 wrote: »

Let me re-phrase question 5:

5. Why was the wording of the actual constitutional amendment on which we are being asked to vote not included in either of the two booklets published by the Government using public money and distributed to every household in the land? Ref:
"The Stability Treaty - Your Guide" (20 pages English, 20 pages Irish)
"The Stability Treaty - Stability for the euro, Assistance Funding, Good Housekeeping"
(double-sided A4, folded over)

Unless there are Governments reps. participating in this forum, I don't expect to get an answer to this question here, but I am hoping that someone with access to the relevant channels will take the question and put it to whoever made the decision to spend a large amount of public money on publishing and distributing documents which claim to be a guide to a referendum, but which don't even include the words we are being asked to vote on. It's a simple question, someone should be accountable and be able to give an answer.

Fair enough - I somehow doubt it's a sinister manipulation of the reader's mind, though.

g11 wrote: »

I am not so sure that it's "a pretty standard amendment", but, even if it was, there still needs to be a healthy discussion on the meaning and implications of the exact words which are being sewn into our constitution.

Previous amendments related to EU Treaties and contained the words "European Union". It's different this time, this amendment is not in the context of an EU Treaty and does not contain the words "European Union". Instead, it refers only to "bodies competent under the Treaty".

The fact that the wording looks vaguely similar to the wording of previous amendments should not lull us into a false sense of security . We should carefully consider the exact meaning and implications of any amendment to our constitution, but especially one which appears to give the power to unspecified external bodies to write unspecified laws by which we must abide, and even more especially so where there is a possibility that those laws may be immune from constitutional challenge.

I don't belong to one side or other of the debate, I am simply trying to decide how to vote. I rely mainly on radio/TV coverage and the leaflets that drop through my letterbox for information. So far, the only leaflet to include the wording is the Referendum Commission one and I have not heard one radio/TV discussion on the wording of the actual amendment itself. Most discussion I have tuned in to quickly descend into a shouting match about the likely sources of hypothetical future loans we might need.

We are the only country involved which has a constitution that gives ordinary people a say and we should be very careful about tinkering with that precious document. Any amendment that even hints at constitutional exemption deserves very careful examination.

Here's a suggestion: I think it would be useful if lots of people posted their own personal plain English interpretations of what they think the wording of the amendment says, in a non-confrontational way and without criticising other people's opinions . We can then all see everyone else's point of view and make up our own minds - this would certainly help me in deciding how to vote.

Here is the amendment again, for reference:
"The State may ratify the Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union done at Brussels on the 2nd day of March 2012. No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of the State under that Treaty or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by bodies competent under that Treaty from having the force of law in the State."

And here's 29.4.10:

10° 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

What is it that leads you to be so concerned about the "bodies competent under the Treaty"? Are you afraid that it has no established meaning in law? And are you aware of how the exemption from constitutional challenge is interpreted in Irish law?

As BlitzKrieg highlighted earlier, the "OMG this is so dangerously open to interpretation!!!" argument comes up each time - but can you even think of an occasion where your constitutional rights were abrogated? That's not to dismiss the idea that it can happen, but to point out that perhaps what appears to be something permitting very wide latitude does not in fact do so.

cordially,
Scofflaw

g11

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28064212

g11 wrote: »

What I want is very simple:

a) I'd like to get an explanation of how it came to be that public money was used to print and distribute a guide to the referendum, which didn't even contain the wording of the referendum.

The guide to the referendum from the referendum commission includes the text of the amendment. The guide to the stability treaty does not. It was not a guide to the referendum, so did not include the text of the referendum.

g11

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28064212

g11 wrote: »

The first paragraph of the document starts with "You are being asked to vote on 31 May to decide if Ireland should ratify the Treaty".
The next paragraph starts with "To help you with your decision, the government is distributing this booklet".

This introduction clearly implies that the booklet contains helpful information about what we are being asked to vote on.

What we are being asked to vote on is an amendment to the constitution, the wording of which is not mentioned at all in the document. So, for me at least, the document does not meet it's stated objective of helping me with my decision on how to vote. In fact, it does quite the opposite, because I am left wondering why was such an important piece of information left out.

Maybe they thought "What on earth would be the point of including the text of the referendum in a pamphlet on the treaty, especially when the referendum commission is producing a pamphlet specifically on the amendment".

Nice use of selective quoting by the way, cutting off the sentence at the point where it changes meaning to the exact opposite of what you are stating:

To help you with your decision, the government is distributing this booklet which contains the full treaty text

beeftotheheels

g11 wrote: »

Here's a suggestion: I think it would be useful if lots of people posted their own personal plain English interpretations of what they think the wording of the amendment says, in a non-confrontational way and without criticising other people's opinions . We can then all see everyone else's point of view and make up our own minds - this would certainly help me in deciding how to vote.

We, The Irish people, permit the Oireachtas to ratify the TCSG if they see fit. If the Oireachtas choose (as they almost certainly will) to ratify that treaty then nothing in this constitution shall render anything in that treaty invalid. However that is not to say that a future Oireachtas could not decide that our continued membership of the TSCG is not in Ireland's best interests, and terminate our membership of that Treaty.

Voting Yes does not mean that we will remain a Member of the Treaty forever, if we voted Yes now, but elected SF at the next general election, then that SF Government (assuming that they had the necessary votes in the Seanad if it still exists) could terminate our membership of the TCSG.

If, by then, we're well on the road to recovery, and there is no risk of us losing access to cheap funding, there's no reason why they shouldn't do that.

Hence one of the reasons why SF keep pretending that the TCSG is actually going into the Constitution (which it is not). The more honest position would be to admit that it is not, and to promise that in the event that we vote yes now (when our funding is not assured and we need the safety net of ESM access), if we elect them in the future they will terminate our Membership.

Of course they can't admit that, because that would require them to acknowledge that this referendum is not, nor should it be, about party politics.

Scofflaw

g11 wrote: »

What I want is very simple:

a) I'd like to get an explanation of how it came to be that public money was used to print and distribute a guide to the referendum, which didn't even contain the wording of the referendum.

To which you want an official answer - and are, as you said, asking in the wrong place.

g11 wrote: »

b) I'd like to get views from as many people as possible on what they think the wording of the amendment means, given that this is not an EU Treaty and that there is no mention of the European Union in the wording.

Then perhaps you should stop mixing that question up with questions you know cannot be answered here.

cordially,
Scofflaw

g11

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Scofflaw

g11 wrote: »

I must say I am very disappointed with this forum. I had expected it to be a friendly place where people could chat as equals and where discussion and alternative views would be sought and encouraged. Instead, it appears to me to a one-way megaphone channel for a few selected moderators, where discussion is discouraged and the only acceptable views are those of the moderators.


The dictionary defines cordial as "Warm and sincere; friendly", I did not detect any of these qualities in the above response. Over and out.

I'm very sorry you're disappointed, but you came into a discussion forum with a question you stated couldn't be answered here, and also the intention of getting people to list out their understanding of the constitutional amendment - again, apparently without discussing it, or at least showing no inclination to do so.

It's a discussion forum.

amused,
Scofflaw

g11

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K-9

g11 wrote: »

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Seeing as the OP has withdrawn the content in the OP rather dramatically, not much purpose in leaving this open.