Madam, - I argued in a recent letter (September 4th) that the Government, exercising the powers conferred on it by the Constitution, and with the consent of the Oireachtas, should ratify the Lisbon Treaty.
Manus Mac Meanmain (September 8th) sought to rebut this by quoting from Article 6.1 of the Constitution that "all powers derive from the people". However, there are two elements in that article which limit the people's role in deciding policy.
Article 6.1 gives precedence to the right (and duty) of the people to designate the rulers of the State, whose powers of government (under Article 6.2) "are exercisable only by or on the authority of the organs of State established by this Constitution". The people are not such an organ. Therefore, even though they are the source of all powers, they need to be authorised before their rights to decide on policy is exercisable.
A second point is the effect of the expression "faoi dheoidh" (poetically translated "in final appeal") in Article 6.1. To my mind, this means that, if the people are to be authorised to take a decision on a question of policy, it should be as the last stage of the process, i.e. after the executive, legislative and judicial organs of the State have all fully played their roles. That is why I suggested that the Government should now ratify Lisbon with the consent of the legislature, and that the Supreme Court should then examine the treaty to determine how much, if any, of it needed to be put to the people.
The amendment of the Constitution should be restricted to those parts of the treaty, if any, which are identified as potentially repugnant.
- Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels, Belgium.