Sir, – Are we sleep-walking into the constitutional convention with its paltry agenda? Some of our reforming luminaries must think that the Constitution is merely the political equivalent of the playing rules of the GAA. We have to realise that it is the fundamental and, effectively, the permanent law of the State.
Unless we are planning a review of such serious issues as government/parliament relationships, the separation of powers or the use (and misuse) of the referendum, we should drop the convention as proposed and get on with the real work of government. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – With the ignominious repeal only last month of Canada’s so-called “Section 13”, its notorious censorship and hate-speech statute which provided for secret courts lacking proper rules of evidence while administering pernicious life-time punishments, a statute which was the bedrock of the country’s Human Rights Commission, I am astonished that Martin G Padgett of Toronto even admits he was a member of that commission (July 10th). Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is in fact a charter which tells Canadians what they are allowed to do. As such it is an anti-freedom charter: in a free society, citizens can do anything they like except what is proscribed in law, not the other way round.
When it comes to a new Irish constitution, the lesson from Canada is to avoid its example like the plague. – Yours, etc,