Is this due to the workload or because he is 80? And there is still 4 years left in his second term.
RTE news : President expresses concern over volume of legislation
http://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0729/1238070-higgins-letter-oireachtas/
Tbf to MDH and im no fan of his, he has a good point here. He has had to review tonnes of legislation since the pandemic started. Previous presidents have had nothing like his volume. Some of this legislation is important too and could be here permanent in spite of the 'emergency' tag that the media is giving it.
He's not complaining about his bloody workload. Can we just change the thread title for the people who clearly aren't reading the article properly?
This is the equivalent of the govt publishing a hundred page bill and demanding a vote on it that evening - something our friends across the water are quite familiar with. It is a poor indictment of the entire process, and those MPs complaining about it in the UK are not complaining cause they have extra work to do
Unprecedented time , requiring urgent action from the Oireachtas . there haven’t been many parliaments around the world that have dealt with Covid brilliantly either , with lots of u turns and cock ups - though the previous failure to legislate outdoor boozing to keep the pubs happy when the cops said they’d be required to take them to court and the politician’s cringe response (basically, “ah sure, it be grand, just ignore it until two weeks time) doesn’t help
then you had the fall out with Brexit and the North and it isn’t too hard to understand that the government have had a lot on its plate . It’s not exactly like they have the strongest of majorities either , and it consists of an unnatural coalition of two political parties who have issues with the fact that their history has come to the ghastly day that they both have to share power .
Try the High Court , and the Supreme Court, especially before the establishment of the Court of Appeal
Not his fault, but there wasn’t one single credible alternative at the last election. Granted, most argued that there should never have been an election due to his popularity but thanks to bould Mary Lou snd the Shinners who nominated a no body (even if she somehow was an MEP and had a famous father and did fine work at TG4) we got an election that no one wanted , even BBC questioned it
The time limit is specified in the Constitution itself as far as I recall
The Article 26 reference power is a double edge sword
the case must be brought within a specified time frame, and even with the best minds in the law library and court, it’s extremely hard to identify Constitutional issues when you are only dealing with hypothetical issues rather than a person appearing before the court with a specific set of facts (which the court first seeks to deal with the legislation and facts itself and then Constitutional issues) . Some Constitutional problems are not obvious or foreseeable until a year or two down the road
If the court deems a bill as Constitutional , it’s going to be very very difficult for a member of the public to successfully challenge the act later on due to the extra protection of constitutionality it will enjoy - thus sometimes , it will be better off for a President not to go to the Supreme Court if there are question marks about whether it really is unconstitutional, let the public do it
Point is, this takes time for the council to set up and scrutinise the bill and the Supreme Court itself has a huge case load before it (not as bad since the Court of Appeal was created)
considering that the courts must assume that the Oireachtas does consider the constitutional issues of every bill, and as ever have seen , previous Attorney Generals claiming X is constitutional but refusing to release the letter of advice to the Oireachtas for the oppositions legal team to look at it …. Not really sure there’s wisdom in the court being so quick to defer to the Oireachtas on that point. It’s not like discussions on the Constitution are uttered much in the Dáil or Seanad sessions or at the committee, based on the transcripts and Oireachtas reports
at the same time, action is needed to legislate expediently due to Covid , and considering the Court can’t and doesn’t interfere with the Oireachtas on everything (separation of powers) … Michael D needs to cop on . We are in serious unprecedented times. Everyone should bear this in mind the next time we are asked to vote for politicians of advanced age
Suoerior Court Judges have mountains of cases before then to consider and write up judgments … not sure Higgins can complain as he can delegate the bills into committees amongst his legal staff.. it’s not like the Law Library are that busy to turn down a prestigious gig
its really hard to ignore the fact that he’s had a soft 10 years, with running around to mostly pointless back splapping tea parties around the world , chalking up expenses, waffling about left wing despots and as you said, reciting “poetry” , god forbid he has to do some actual work every now and again .
this latest statement should not have been made public , the government, if it had a backbone would look for revenge after this stunt and frustrate the rest of his tenure with regard to expenses, and what trips he can make and what speeches he can vomit out. Alas, for some strange reason he’s popular . The government is hated so they won’t say boo
Current head of Irish Council of Civil Liberties who has a legal background was on the payroll for a number of years in the President's office. No idea who stepped into the role afterwards.
Don't think his Secretary General is 'advising him'. His Secretary General is running the operation, managing the staff, managing the building, managing the events, managing the international relations (given that she's come from DFA). AFAIK, he does not have legal experts on staff.
How does salary enable you to increase your workload?
Because its literally his job?
If this is the sort of mess a team of legal experts in their prime with months to work on it can create why does an 80 year old amateur poet think he needs to be the expert on each word of a bill before he can approve it. If this is his approach we be waiting for months to have even the smallest piece of legislation signed into law as he struggles to research the full legal implications of every word in between naps.
If you are asked to do 7 projects in work between January and June, then asked to do 7 projects in work in the first week of July you are going to struggle and consider it a poor allocation of resources not matter how much you are paid.
HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT THE PRESIDENT LIKE THAT
MAY YOUR BARE BUTTOCKS BE THRASHED WITH NETTLES FORTHWITH.
He does have staff for this purpose. I'm aware he had an advisor with a legal and academic background from UCC on staff in the Presidential office for instance. He also has his very own General Secretary advising him.
What on earth makes you think he doesn't?
"Many of these bills are complex and require me to undertake a detail analysis of their constitutional implications. Some may require the seeking of legal advice and others consultation with the Council of State."
It is, however, his responsibility as the elected President to actually make those decisions. That is the role he was voted into and he can not just abdicate that to legal counsel so of course he wants to analyse them himself.
I don't know, 38 years before an issue being found is pretty good going, was the president under time pressure to get this signed back in 1977 and missed the issue?
Well, constitutionally right now it doesn't matter, whatever the volume sent his way, he has to read and sign off in the time frame that he's allowed.
OK, what skills does MDH have to determine whether legislation should be sent on?
I'm perfectly happy with a non-executive president, I'd be happy if he had staff to advise him on the constitutionality of the pieces of legislation rather than trying to do it himself, even if that meant reducing the volume of legislation he can get through in a given time frame.
"complex legislation that has taken months or even years to draft by teams of actual experts."
He is an ex sociology professor turned career backbencher. Even if he was fit healthy and in his prime mentally would we want him sitting up late at night trying to read, understand and analyse complex legislation that has taken months or even years to draft by teams of actual experts.
Moronic comment.
Any examples?
The President is doing no such thing, we've seen some sharp work pulled in legislation with regards to the government doing whatever it please and not a word from the incumbent carpet bagger until now.
Your attempts at being edgey are in reality spectacularly poor.
Have you considered trying harder ?
How exactly do you expect to change staffing levels on the day the Dáil chooses to send 7 pieces of legislation. You can't magic staff up overnight.
Anyway, you are correct that MDH does not decide whether legislation is constitutional - that is not his job. He decides whether to send it on to the Supreme Court for them to decide if it is constitutional.
Remind me - which Article of the Constitution sets out details of his "pro forma signing" role? I've had a look but I can't find those words anywhere in the Constitution.
Yes, the constitution empowers and quite literally qualifies them to exercise that power at their absolute discretion. I don't understand what you want from the President - do you wish for him to go back to college or something? Our Minister for Justice is a laywoman with a degree in journalism. Her stand-in Humphries is no legal eagle, does this concern you also?
Do you think the President and the Minister for Justice both rattle around in their mahogany offices without access to advice on matters of legal importance?
EDIT: And a President could indeed elect to be more interventionist, the executive cannot tell him/her what do on matters such as these in the least. We haven't had such an interventionist President (with the exception of Ó Dálaigh who was bullied out of office), but the power is at his / her fingertips. A government can't flip a President the finger and tell them 'sign this today or else.' That's not factual.
No, sorry, hang on.
MD is one of those people whose character refuses to allow a staff to do all the work for him and simply rubber stamp everything.
I'm not saying he doesn't enjoy the embellishments of his office. Let's be fair, we all would. He's well to do.
But I do believe he makes an effort, at least, to personally review, in detail, all legislation and determine its validity. It is one of the few extremely important and vital functions of his office.
If a bill is repugnant to the constitution, or if he feels it may be, he has an array of tools which he can use to subject it to further scrutiny.
Where a government is firing bills at him left right and centre at a pace where he feels he can't meet that obligation, then he is right, and duty bound, to call attention to it.
You're saying that anyone who wins the votes to be president is qualified, that the mere act of getting a vote more than someone else confers a qualification on someone? That they now have the skill to see unconstitutional legislation when they didn't previously?
This is of course preposterous, but makes sense in our system where the president is a figurehead, which again makes the reading and signing of legislation a rubber stamping exercise with no real power.
And again, if they give him 50 tomorrow, he must read and sign them all within the time limit because that is the role. He can complain, as he has, but that is the extent of what he can do.
He is absolutely qualified, he is empowered by the constitution as the first citizen of the state with discretionary powers to refer on behalf of the people. This may surprise you but the President of course has legal counsel at his disposal on these matters!
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