Constitution of Ireland (1937) (excerpts related to Fundamental and International Rights) (English)
Constitution of Ireland, 1937
Amendments of 1992 and 1995 included
(Excerpts)
[Chapter VI] International Relations
Article 29 [Peace, Principles of International Law]
(3) Ireland accepts the generally recognized principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.
(5.1) Every international agreement to which the State becomes a party shall be laid before the House of Representatives.
(5.2) The State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of the agreement shall have been approved by the House of Representatives.
(5.3) This section shall not apply to agreements or conventions of a technical and administrative character.
(6) No international agreement shall be part of the domestic law of the State save as may be determined by Parliament.
[Chapter XII] Fundamental Rights
Article 40 Personal Rights
(1) All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function.
(3.1) The State guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate the personal rights of the citizen.
(3.2) The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen.
(4.1) No citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty save in accordance with law.
(4.2) Upon complaint being made by or on behalf of any person to the High Court or any judge thereof alleging that such person is being unlawfully detained, the High Court and any and every judge thereof to whom such complaint is made shall forthwith enquire into the said complaint and may order the person in whose custody such person is detained to produce the body of such person before the High Court on a named day and to certify in writing the grounds of his detention, and the High Court shall, upon the body of such person being produced before that Court and after giving the person in whose custody he is detained an opportunity of justifying the detention, order the release of such person from such detention unless satisfied that he is being detained in accordance with the law.
(4.3) Where the body of a person alleged to be unlawfully detained is produced before the High Court in pursuance of an order in that behalf made under this section and that Court is satisfied that such person is being detained in accordance with a law but that such law is invalid having regard to the provisions of this Constitution, the High Court shall refer the question of the validity of such law to the Supreme Court by way of case stated and may, at the time of such reference or at any time thereafter, allow the said person to be at liberty on such bail and subject to such conditions as the High Court shall fix until the Supreme Court has determined the question so referred to it.
(4.4) The High Court before which the body of a person alleged to be unlawfully detained is to be produced in pursuance of an order in that behalf made under this section shall, if the President of the High Court or, if he is not available, the senior judge of that Court who is available so directs in respect of any particular case, consist of three judges and shall, in every other case, consist of one judge only.
(4.5) Where an order is made under this section by the High Court or a judge thereof for the production of the body of a person who is under sentence of death, the High Court or such judge thereof shall further order that the execution of the said sentence of death shall be deferred until after the body of such person has been produced before the High Court and the lawfulness of his detention has been determined and if, after such deferment, the detention of such person is determined to be lawful, the High Court shall appoint a day for the execution of the said sentence of death and that sentence shall have effect with the substitution of the day so appointed for the day originally fixed for the execution thereof.
(4.6) Nothing in this section, however, shall be invoked to prohibit, control, or interfere with any act of the Defence Forces during the existence of a state of war or armed rebellion.
(5) The dwelling of every citizen is inviolable and shall not be forcibly entered save in accordance with law.
(6.1) The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights, subject to public order and morality:--
(i)The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.
(ii)The education of public opinion being, however, a matter ofsuch grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavor to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.
(iii)The right of the citizens to assemble peaceably and without arms. Provision may be made by law to prevent or control meetings which are determined in accordance with law to be calculated to cause a breach of the peace or to be a danger or nuisance to the general public and to prevent or control meetings in the vicinity of either House of Parliament.
(iv)The right of the citizens to form associations and unions. Laws, however, may be enacted for the regulation and control in the public interest of the exercise of the foregoing right.
(6.2) Laws regulating the manner in which the right of forming associations and unions and the right of free assembly may be exercised shall contain no political, religious or class discrimination.
Article 41 Family
(1.1) The State recognizes the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.
(1.2) The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State.
(2.1) In particular, the State recognizes that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
(2.2) The State shall, therefore, endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home.
(3.1) The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.
Article 42 Education
(4) The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavor to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation.
Article 44 Religion
(1) The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honor religion.
(2.1) Freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion are, subject to public order and morality, guaranteed to every citizen.
(2.2) The State guarantees not to endow any religion.
(2.3) The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status.
[Chapter XIII] Directive principles of social policy
Article 45 [Social Policy]
(0) The principles of social policy set forth in this article are intended for the general guidance of Parliament. The application of those principles in the making of laws shall be the care of Parliament exclusively, and shall not be cognisable by any Court under any of the provisions of this Constitution.
(1) The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the whole people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life.
(4.2) The State shall endeavor to ensure that the strength and health of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children shall not be abused and that citizens shall not be forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their sex, age or strength.