Following a lengthy legal challenge the High Court has upheld the constitutionality of a law permitting the purchase of ground rent from landlords by the occupiers of the land.
The reserved judgment, by Mr Justice Michael Peart, was made available yesterday.
JES Holdings and its shareholders, John and Lucy Shirley, were claiming that the Landlord and Tenant Act, under which supermarket owner Augustine O'Gorman was seeking to buy out his ground rent from them, was unconstitutional.
The history of the various Acts regulating the relations between landlords and tenants was examined in evidence, where sociologist Tony Fahey and economist Moore McDowell gave evidence for the landlords.
Mr Fahey was asked to describe the social background to the legislation, and its relationship to the considerations of social justice mentioned in the Constitution, given that the beneficiary of the legislation, Mr O'Gorman, was a prosperous man who would gain an asset at the expense of another individual, the landlord.
Dr Fahey said there was a distinction between social justice and the common good, and he found it hard to see a social justice argument in this case, as Mr O'Gorman was not in particular need.
However, he said that there could be a common good argument, if the beneficiary could provide for the common good, in terms of increased employment.
Mr McDowell said that the common good should be subject to some kind of complete and competent evaluation of the consequences of the law, and that otherwise he would not be happy to describe something as being for the common good. He accepted that the common good was not decided solely by economists.
Prof John Wylie, an expert in Irish property law, gave evidence on behalf of Mr O'Gorman and said that titles had become complicated by the ground rent system, giving rise to "pyramid titles".
He also referred to a difficulty which sometimes occurs in identifying who is the landlord who owns the land on which a building is situated.
Eoin Fitzsimons SC, for JES Holdings Ltd, submitted that the legislation in question had been intended to assist people in dwelling houses who wished to buy out their ground rent, and not businesses. The only purpose of it in this context was to enrich already prosperous people.
He also said that the evidence of Dr Fahey rebutted the presumption that the law accorded with the principles of social justice.
He argued that it was contrary to the property rights under the Constitution that his clients did not receive the true value of their asset.
Donal O'Donnell SC, for Mr O'Gorman, said that what was being acquired was not the land itself, but the landlord's interest in the land, and JES Holdings was being adequately compensated for this.
Mr Justice Peart said that the fact that the defendant was a prosperous legal entity did not detract from the overall objectives of the legislation, which were to assist in an equitable distribution of property rights among all sectors of society.
He said that the presumption of constitutionality enjoyed by the legislation had not been rebutted, and he rejected the appeal brought by JES Holdings.