An Interactive Relationship
In reflections on fifty years of membership, the employment of women is often identified as a tangible example of how membership changed Ireland. Concretely, in the years immediately following accession, the state was required to enact legislation on equal pay and equal treatment for women and men in employment. This narrative tends to place emphasis on EU law as a cause of law reform in Ireland. 50 years on, both Irish and EU equality law have expanded significantly.
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Anti-Terror Legislation and Property Rights in Egypt
In January 2023, the Egyptian cabinet introduced a new bill for parliamentary discussion proposing the establishment of a new body to manage seized funds and assets confiscated by the state, including the seized assets of individuals and organizations legally designated as terrorists. In the midst of a severe economic crisis, the bill allows the transfer of confiscated funds and assets from the public treasury to a new entity that would have the mandate to take any form of disposition regarding these assets. The Egyptian sheds the light on the problematic “preventive” nature of counter-terrorism regulations, which vanishes criminal law safeguards and rule of law standards.
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Trojan Horses and Constitutional Identity
In Costello v Ireland the Irish Supreme Court upheld a constitutional challenge by a Green Party MP to the Government’s proposed ratification of the CETA. By a majority of 4:3, the Court held that ratification would breach Irish juridical sovereignty. Beyond CETA, the greater significance of Costello may lie in its endorsement of constitutional identity as a doctrinal device that controls Ireland’s domestic legal engagement with its international law obligations. The new status accorded to constitutional identity, however, may provide future Irish courts with the doctrinal tools to recalibrate the relationship between the Irish and EU legal orders.
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Property, Proportionality, and Marginality
On 31 January 2022, the Irish Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment that collapsed, at least in respect of remedies, a previously rigidly-drawn distinction between the private law rights and the public law obligations of housing authorities. The judgment breaks important new ground in emphasising the underprivileged and marginalised status of the Travelling community, and furthermore, in identifying that status as a factor that could weigh against the granting of an injunctive remedy.
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