Legal Challenge to A Second Lisbon Treaty Referendum ?

Aragon wrote:

Pure sophistry. If we had voted yes would we now be having a second referendum? Not on your nelly. If the No side, in that event, were demanding a rerun the media would be howling with outrage about it, nay, sneering with contempt at our lack of respect for the 'settled will of the people'. Hypocrites, all of you.

Aragon, you mentioned in your earlier post that you had studied law, albeit not in a jurisdiction with a written constitution. Your comment that Papal Knight's contribution is "pure sophistry" suggests that you may be in need of a primer on Irish constitutional law.

If the people had voted YES in June there would indeeed be no second referendum. This is because, as various contributors have pointed out to you, the Oireachtas is the only body that can initiate a referendum to change the constitution and the Oireachtas has a solid pro-Lisbon majority. This may be inconvenient to the europhobes out there but it is the way that Bunreacht na hÉireann operates.

Your coments have nothing to do with Irish constitutional law and are closer to "pure sophistry" than those made by people with a little more familiarity with Bunreacht than you appear to have.

evercloserunion wrote:

Aragon wrote:

Pure sophistry. If we had voted yes would we now be having a second referendum? Not on your nelly. If the No side, in that event, were demanding a rerun the media would be howling with outrage about it, nay, sneering with contempt at our lack of respect for the 'settled will of the people'. Hypocrites, all of you.

Very vicious post, Aragon. You don't seem to be able to grasp the basics of representative democracy, either. Don't you understand that our democratically elected representatives have some rights and competences by virtue of their being democratically elected? Don't you get that their opinions on the issue do matter? If they want to re-run a referendum that is their entitlement (see the Constitution), regardless of what you think, just like if they want to pass a Defamation Act or a Finances Act that is their entitlement too, regardless of whether or not you like it (point out to me where it mentions "Aragon from MachineNation" in the Constitution and I'll be very impressed).

More to the point, it's completely irrelevant what the media might or might not be saying. There's no apparent legal grounds to challenging the constitutionality of a second referendum, and that would be the case whichever side called for one, or raised a challenge. Effectively, the No side would need the Supreme Court to legislate for there be some such bar, thus changing the Constitution without a referendum. It's a funny thing to do, or even want to do, in defence of the people's democratic rights, but par for the course: