The Gazette 1971

Before he could entertain any application for a declaration which would bind the Registrar of Political Parties, the Registrar would have to be represented before him and would have to be entitled to put for- ward submissions as to what matters in his view should influence him in deciding whether or not a party was genuine or organised as set out in the Section. In the absence of the Registrar as a party in these proceedings it seemed to him he could make no declara- tion which in some way bound him and he did not propose to do so. The President said he thought that that consideration prevented him making any of the first three declarations claimed in paragraph two of the statement of claim— that the Registrar's decision was wrong; that the party was at all material times a genuine political party within the meaning of Section 13 (2) of the Act; and that the party was organised to contest a Dáil or local elections. On the question of the claim for a declaration that the appeal board was wrongly constituted the President said that here they were faced with questions of some difficulty. Having referred to the constitution of the appeal board the President said that having applied for regis- tration of the party and been refused by the Registrar of Political Parties, they then asked for the constitution of the appeal board. The appeal board apparently was constituted and met and, one gathered from a letter of 16th March 1965 that on that day it decided to hold a public sitting on March 19th at which the question would be considered. Unfortunately, on March 18th Dáil Eireann was dissolved and the question had been argued as to what was the position arising from the dissolution of Dáil Eireann on March 18th, the appeal board having taken place on March 19th. The President said that the plaintiffs were repre- sented before this appeal board on March 19th at a time when it must have been obvious to them that the Dáil had been dissolved; the Ceann Comhairle was no longer chairman of Dáil Eireann, if the contention now put forward was correct. It might be that they did not advert to that at the time and it might be that the members of the appeal board did not advert to it. Whatever the reason, the plaintiffs proceeded with their application to the appeal board as if the appeal board was properly constituted. Afterthought The appeal board upheld the decision of the Registrar and it was not for quite some time after that that the plaintiffs decided to complain as to the lack of juris- diction of the board. They first brought proceedings claiming a declaration that the Statute was unconstitutional and it was only as an afterthought that they claimed in relation to the constitution of the board. This was perhaps not sur- prising when one considered what the practical merits of their claim in relation to the board were. If they had succeeded in their appeal they would hardly have com- plained as to the lack of jurisdiction of the board. Having lost their appeal they now complained of the lack of jurisdiction. They submitted that because there was no person who could be described as the chairman of Dáil Eireann the board could not function at all during the period of the dissolution. It became necessary to determine whether the board was or was not properly constituted. It was hardly intended that the framers of the legislation intended that there should be no properly constituted board during a period of dissolution of Dáil Eireann. In addi- tion to that there was the point that the Standing Orders of Dáil Eireann provided that the Ceann

Comhairle, who had been a member of the board on March 16th, was not the chairman of Dáil Eireann on March 19th and that the board on which he sat was not properly constituted. The President said he thought that the board could have functioned on March 19th with Mr. Justice Kenny and the chairman of Seanad Eireann constituting a majority and could have carried on. That did not arise, however, because it had been conceded on behalf of the board that if it should be held that the Ceann Comhairle was not in fact the Ceann Comhairle on March 19th, that the fact that he sat with the other members was to be regarded as invalidating the decision. No Jurisdiction In the result, in his view, he should make the declara- tion that the board was not properly constituted on March 19th and that the decision was accordingly made without jurisdiction. The President said he had been asked to express a view on the merits of the decision but he felt he should not do so. In the result, he could not deal with the claim for a declaration that the board's decision was wrong in law. In an obiter dictum, the President said that in his view the Registrar had adopted far too high a standard in his requirements of genuineness of organisations. That was not to say that if the matter came before the Registrar again he was bound by what was now being said, or that the evidence of what was the situation in 1965 was the same as the evidence as to the situation today or at some future date whenever the matter came up again. But for himself—and it was entirely obiter dictum —it seemed to him that the standard required by the Registrar was very much too high. On the application of Mr. Niall McCarthy, S.C., for the Attorney General, the President awarded the Attor- ney General his costs against the plaintiffs. On an application by Mr. Donal Barrington, S.C. (for the plaintiffs), for costs, the President said that they had failed to secure registration for an election held in the year 1965. They could, any time after the meeting of Dáil Eireann subsequent to the election, have raised the point they now made and applied to an appeal board properly constituted and perhaps got themselves on the register. "But the litigation as to the constitution of the board in the year 1965, when the litigation comes for hearing in May 1971 is to my mind a complete waste of the Court's time and I don't think I ought to award to the plaintiffs the costs of wasting public time in that fashion." On the application of Mr. Barrington, the President allowed a stay on the order for costs. The Irish Times (15th May 1971) SUPREME COURT FINDS THAT COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS ACT 1970 IS DEFECTIVE In a reserved judgment delivered yesterday, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal by Mr. Paraic Haughey, of Raheny, Co. Dublin, against a six-month sentence im- posed on him by the High Court for failing to answer questions put to him in last February by the Committee of Public Accounts of Dail Eireann investigating the disposal of the £100,000 grant-in-aid for the relief of distress in Northern Ireland. Mr. Haughey was awarded his costs. The judgment, which was delivered by the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice O Dalaigh, declared sub-section 4 of section 4 of the Committee of Public Accounts of Dail Eireann (Privilege and Procedure) Act, 1970, to be unconstitutionalf or being in violation of the constitu-

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