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Ireland. Supreme Court

Publications and source records attributed to Ireland. Supreme Court.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1988

In re the Adoption (Amendment) Bill 1987, 26 July 1988.

The President of Ireland referred to the Supreme Court the question whether Section 3 of the Adoption (Amendment) Bill was repugnant to family rights contained in Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution. Section 3 authorizes a child of parents who were married to each other to be adopted under exceptional circumstances, i.e., when the parents have totally failed their duty to their child, when that failure arises from "physical and moral" reasons and continues for more than a year prior to application, and when such failure constitutes abandonment. The Court found the Bill constitutional. It held that, under Articles 40.3 and 42.5 of the Constitution, the rights of the child within the family could in extraordinary circumstances be supplied by placing a child in an alternative family, and that the preconditions set forth in the Bill were sufficient to protect the constitutional guarantees afforded to the family. After the Supreme Court reached its decision, this Bill was signed into law as the Adoption (Amendment) Act 1988.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Attorney General (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Ltd.) v. Open Door Counselling Ltd., 16 March 1988.

The defendants were clinics providing pregnancy counselling, including information about the availability of abortion in England. The Attorney General took over prosecution of the suit from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which sought an injunction to prevent the defendants from providing counseling. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling granting the injunction and held that the defendants' activities violated Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution, which guarantees that the State will respect, defend, and vindicate the rights of the unborn as far as is practicable. It concluded that the defendants were assisting in the ultimate destruction of life through abortion, that there was no constitutional right to information about abortion (that would be in conflict with Article 40.3.3), and that the Attorney General had standing to bring the proceedings, even though there was no particular pregnant woman represented who might be affected by the injunction. The ruling of the lower court was reported in Annual Review of Population Law, Vol. 14, 1987, Section 240. On 7 September 1988, a judge of the High Court refused to issue an injunction directed against printing, publishing, and distributing a welfare guide providing information about the availability of abortions. The judge ruled that the Attorney General was the proper person to make an application for such an injunction, not the plaintiffs, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. See Irish Law Reports Monthly, 1989, p. 526. This judgment was reversed in 1989 by the Supreme Court.

Abortion, Illegal↗
PubMed1988

Conlon v. Mohamed, 14 October 1988.

The Supreme Court of Ireland upheld the decision of a lower court allowing the plaintiff to eject the defendant from her house. The parties had been married in South Africa under Moslem law and subsequently moved to Ireland where they lived in the plaintiff's house. The lower court ruled that, since a Moslem marriage was potentially polygamous, it was not valid at common law in Ireland, and that, thus, the defendant had no claim to stay in the plaintiff's house.

Developed Countries↗