Madam, – The Government has been criticised by letter writers and the Opposition parties for choosing to appeal the Doherty judgment of the High Court.
Can I suggest that the Government’s reaction is a sensible and important one? While there is no doubt that the outcome of Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns’s judgment is the right one – the byelection will be held – the basis on which he made that judgment is rather less sound.
He takes a de facto view of the relationship between the government and the parties supporting the government. But legally the government cannot force TDs to vote in one particular way or another. What if the TDs who otherwise supported the government chose not to do as directed by their party leaders on this occasion? It is the judiciary telling the executive to make the legislature do something? While we know that the government usually can tell its TDs what to do, should we not preserve the legal nicety (in the higher courts at least) that TDs serve their constituents not the government? A more sensible way of dealing with this would have been to suggest the relevant provision of the Electoral Act was unconstitutional. – Yours, etc,