Next EU Treaty - how will you vote?

[Charlie Darwin]

It still has absolutely nothing to do with Lisbon. The government doesn't need to call a referendum for every treaty it wants to sign. This is exactly what would have happened had Lisbon not passed.

[bennocelt]

It still has absolutely nothing to do with Lisbon. The government doesn't need to call a referendum for every treaty it wants to sign. This is exactly what would have happened had Lisbon not passed.


But isnt that the point - that we should have a referendum for every treaty?

[Charlie Darwin]

Do you fancy heading out to vote every time we sign a bilateral trade agreement with Iceland or Japan or whoever? The law is quite clear - a referendum is required when signing the treaty would conflict with the the Irish constitution and require changing its character. For the most part, Irish governments have been even more conservative than this, calling referendums for legislation that could have been passed in the Dail.

[bennocelt]

Do you fancy heading out to vote every time we sign a bilateral trade agreement with Iceland or Japan or whoever? The law is quite clear - a referendum is required when signing the treaty would conflict with the the Irish constitution and require changing its character. For the most part, Irish governments have been even more conservative than this, calling referendums for legislation that could have been passed in the Dail.

Ok that seems fair, but would we be even told!

[mypost]

Do you fancy heading out to vote every time we sign a bilateral trade agreement with Iceland or Japan or whoever? The law is quite clear - a referendum is required when signing the treaty would conflict with the the Irish constitution and require changing its character. For the most part, Irish governments have been even more conservative than this, calling referendums for legislation that could have been passed in the Dail.

I wouldn't mind heading out to vote when we sign agreements with Iceland or Japan, but we didn't have to. We had to vote on treaties within the European Union.

The Dail could not pass EU legislation since the Crotty Case without getting the agreement of the nation via referendum. If they attempted to, a number of legal challenges would have been taken against the state.

As regards Lisbon itself, the then AG advised on the holding of a referendum for the first ballot. Politically, it was impossible to pass it without another referendum. This is the first time where no referendum is legally required to pass a EU treaty in Ireland since Crotty, because of the self-amending Article 48 of Lisbon. Any legal challenge will be struck out as a result. It has everything to do with Lisbon.

[legendz]

When will democracy work? To define work, I'll have to come back to that another time. Fianna Fail were a disaster, even through the so called boom years I could never see why people would vote those gangsters back into power. FG/Lab are ok to a degree but I wouldn't say they are serving the best interest in the people. There reluctance an eagerness for no referendum says a lot. If the AG says there's no need for a referendum, I don't have a problem with it.

If people decide to reject FG/Lab in four years time and if there's no occurrence of short-term memory loss which usually affects the country regards FF, is there any group likely to gain the public vote?

[Macy]

I struggling to see the problem if the advice is no referendum - hard to see the President not referring it on to the supreme court anyway. If one isn't needed, then it'd be stupid, never mind a complete waste of resources, to hold a referendum. If we're looking for a cynical approach, it's really the opposition that are playing politics with the issue. Especially FF (surprisingly). As late as Sunday night FF reps were saying if there was no need for referendum, then there shouldn't be one. SF play the populist card and all of a sudden Cone Head is saying there should be a referendum (not in such clear words - Kenny made a complete show of him trying to get him to explain exactly what he meant).

I'm not a constitutional lawyer (like everyone on this thread as far as I'm aware), but my understanding is that the fact that we may not need a referendum is nothing to do with Lisbon, but to do with the fact that the provisions are in line with previous treaties (as far back as maastricht) that have already been passed.