I think I owe an apology to the Chair, to the Taoiseach and to the House. Last evening I objected to the discussion on this Bill being continued. I had abandoned all hope of the Bill being concluded before a very late hour. I thought, until I heard further this morning, that it would be a service to all concerned to postpone further consideration of it until to-day. I now learn that that has interfered with other plans of the Taoiseach, and I apologise. It might have been possible to conclude all stages of the Bill last night were it not for the fact that a great deal of time was spent unnecessarily during the discussion. We had, for instance, the criticisms that were made by Senator Fitzgerald. Listening to him I recalled a remark that the Minister for Education made earlier in his plea for defeating the anglicisation of the people by intensifying devotion to the use of the Irish language as the spoken language. I am afraid that the Minister for Education is not as much alive as we in this House are to how deeply anglicised some of our members have become. The criticisms that were made here by the Senator in question were dictated by recollection of the constitutional practice in Great Britain under which we grew up. Senator Mrs. Concannon made a very effective, vigorous and brief reply to him on one point. When he said that "the Government was taking these powers," she very aply retorted that the Government was asking for these powers, and that it was for the House to give them.
Now, because the Senator referred to and many others for that matter outside the House think of constitutional practice and ways in the light of the English unwritten Constitution, they have a wholly wrong conception of many of the things that are done here. In Great Britain legislative sovereignty resides in the Parliament but political sovereignty is in the people. Hence the type of democracy of which Great Britain is the representative is Parliamentary Government. Britain is a Parliamentary democracy. Ours is not. It is a pity that our people do not study the Constitution with more attention. The type of democracy which we have set up is a constitutional democracy; it is not as in Britain Parliamentary Government. There is an Article of the Constitution—unfortunately I cannot quote it by number—in which "The Government" is defined. We speak frequently of Government without adverting to the difference between Government and "The Government". Under the Constitution, "The Government" is the Executive Council, and Government has a wholly different reference. It would not, therefore, be correct to say, for example, that we who are members of the Houses of the Legislature form part of "The Government" of the country, for there is that express declaration in an Article of the Constitution that "The Government" of the country is the Executive Council.
The particular type of fundamental law that our people choose to enact is the Constitution. It is an act of the people. You will see that it is impossible for this House or both Houses to give to the Government the powers which it is alleged the Government are taking, that is powers to subordinate the judiciary or usurp the functions of the judiciary. Even if we purported to give them such power, there are two Articles of the Constitution which declare that this will be null and void. Any Act that is passed or purports to be passed in the Houses of the Parliament of the State is null and void in respect of any section which conflicts with what is set down in the Constitution. So that, even though in blind haste or panic we were stampeded in the Houses of the Legislature into passing something which subtracts from the independence of the judges, such legislation would be wholly inoperative. Therefore we are saved by the fact of our Constitution being written from any such result as that. I am as strong as Senator Hayes on the upholding of the independence of the judiciary. We have ceased to have democratic liberty if we have not unfettered courts of law and judges to defend the rights and liberties of the individual, and any encroachment of the Executive on the judiciary would call for the resistance of every good citizen. But, as I am endeavouring to show, that situation cannot arise, as a study of the Constitution will reveal.
But, with regard to the lesser or minor judges, if I might refer to them without using derogatory language, known as district justices, there was an attempt, which I may be pardoned for recalling, to interfere with their discretion in the first years of their existence. In the eyes of many people, district justices are only stipendiary magistrates under another name, and people think they can be dictated to and written to, and called to account even in a House of the Legislature as being only a sort of magistrate. But I recall that the late Hugh Kennedy, as Attorney-General or Law Adviser to the Government of that day, explained that his conception of their office was: that there is one District Court for the whole State, with justices of that District Court located in different places. Senator Hayes will recall that there was once an attempt made to criticise in the Dáil a district justice, and the attempt was repelled by himself—at the time he was Ceann Comhairle—because it was interference with the liberty of a judge. Now, district justices, although they are judges, do not hold office in the way in which judges of the High Court do. A formula we are all familiar with in regard to judges of the High Court is quamdiu se bene gesserunt; that is, they hold office so long as they conduct themselves properly.
There is a way of dealing with a district justice who does not take his position seriously or who finds himself incapacitated for the discharge of his duty. He can be dealt with by a committee over which the chief justice presides. I suggest that if it can be shown in the time of the present emergency—which, in accordance with our First Amendment of the Constitution is in reality a time of war although we are not actually a belligerent—if it can be shown that in such time of emergency a district justice perversely attempts to thwart the operation of a measure designed by the Government for the protection of the people's interest and shows his contempt for these efforts of our Government by imposing light and ineffective fines for an anti-social act of which a man has been convicted, then it would be possible to arraign him. I suggest that that is the way to deal with conduct of the sort, a way already provided in a time of peace when there was no possibility of passion or hostile feeling being at work in the minds of those who designed the remedy.
Now, on another point also of yesterday's debate, I am anxious to say how much I enter into the feelings of Senator Campbell with regard to the Order 83. When we—rightly as I held and hold still—approved an Order or regulation attempting to save the people from the spiral of rising prices by imposing a restriction on an increase of wages and likewise an increase of dividends distributed to shareholders—for both wage-earners and dividend-receivers were affected by the Order—when we did that, undoubtedly it became encumbent to see to the regulation of prices. An effort has been made, we are assured by the Taoiseach, to keep down attempts at profiteering in prices. But the effort has not been wholly successful so far as I can learn; and in result, I think I may submit with all respect, it is legitimate to make a plea for further and closer attention to this evil of prices being raised here and there by unconscionable people who sell the necessaries of life to the workers in the city. Now, the prices regulation authority—it may be my ignorance which dictates this comment—seem to regard prices as simply prices of commodities. But there are prices of services, and services are just as apt to become the subject of this unfair action on the part of certain people.
I have been told, for instance, that it is a grievance of some auctioneers that recently, when private motor cars had to go off the roads, there was a rush to estate agents' offices on the part of house owners in Foxrock, Carrickmines and as far out as Killiney because the difficulty of transport kept people from arriving at their place of business or office and their various centres of avocation. Then the transport of the furniture from the houses that the owners had the good fortune to sell promptly became to the carriers and the furniture removers an opportunity for profit. One auctioneer assured me that in several cases where the household contents were brought to his place the levy made on the goods by the carrier used up a large part of the auctioneer's results. It may be that many of those who suffered from it were well able to bear the impost but that does not make it the less inequitable. I would like to draw attention to that as a matter which comes under the heading of prices.
