ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION (AMENDMENT) BILL (2010)
Posted on June 21, 2010 at 01:01 PM
The speech by the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, in the Dáil last night shows that Minister Gormley has gone native - that is native Fianna Fáil.
He said that he was “giving consideration to establishing an electoral commission on a non-statutory basis to report on the electoral reform agenda set out in the Renewed Programme for Government”.
Even Fianna Fáil would have to admire that powerful kick to touch.
The great Green giants of democracy certainly won’t precipitate a local or general election. Principles were alright when they were in opposition but now they are in the Fianna Fáil tent and like Groucho Marx they have access to a whole different set of principles.
The Electoral Representation (Amendment) Bill (2010) simply amends the 1992 Electoral Act so that by elections would take place within a six month period of a vacancy arising.
It is intolerable that any Government should refuse to hold a by election because it knows it won’t win. This refusal is pure political cynicism. This Government has lost direction, has lost leadership, has lost ideas and it knows it will lose its voting majority if it loses three by elections.
This Government has only one thing on its mind and that is to avoid the evil day of facing the electorate until they are obliged to do so by May 2012 in a General Election.
In the meantime the people of Donegal South West, Dublin South and Waterford are left without their constitutional entitlement to public representation in Dáil Éireann.
It is now almost twelve months since the European Elections were held on Friday 5th June 2009. Donegal South West has been without representation for almost a year. If, God forbid, this awful Government does struggle on until 2012 then the people of Donegal South West will be without representation for three years and Waterford and Dublin South for nearly two and a half years.
It appears that the Government will not budge unless they are forced to do so by legal action.
In 1993, Dr. John O’Connell resigned his seat in Dublin South Central. Fourteen months later a student applied for leave to institute judicial review proceedings on the grounds that his right to vote at common law, by statute and under the Constitution were being infringed. Leave was granted by the High Court to the student to initiate the review proceedings against the Government and the Attorney General.
Judge Geoghegan stated that having regard to Article 16 (7) of the Constitution there was an arguable case that there is a Constitutional obligation to hold a by election within a reasonable time of a vacancy occurring and that a reasonable time had elapsed in this case.
The judicial review never took place because the Government quickly caved in and conceded the by election which, incidentally, it lost.
It appears that judicial review proceedings will have to be instituted once again to establish the citizen’s right to democracy against the Government’s attempts to deny it.
