Leo Varadkar has been criticised for expecting the public to vote in favour of adding vague language to the constitution.
Ireland, more than any other EU country, has a long and colourful history of referendums. Another chapter in that history has played out in the form of resounding defeats for two government proposals aimed at modernising the constitution.
For a long time, referendums were, most typically, proposed by governments as a sort of means to an end. They were a way of permitting policies and acts which would otherwise have been unconstitutional, like making changes to the political system. Referendums were usually just a procedural requirement, imposed by the constitution, for making certain types of legal changes.
And so, in this light, a new style of referendum arguably emerged. Beginning in around 2012, referendums came to be used as part of a distinctive project of constitutional modernisation. There was an emphasis on removing or updating various parts of the constitution seen as archaic, oppressive or outdated.
It is true, of course that some of these liberalising referendums, which removed controversial aspects of a Catholic-influenced constitution, related to materially significant issues of sometimes existential importance. The referendum repealing notorious abortion restrictions in the constitution was certainly that.
End of an era It’s in this context that we must understand the latest referendums. The 39th amendment proposed to reform article 41 of the Irish constitution to provide that a “family”, in constitutional law, could be based not only on marriage but also on “durable relationships”. Again, this was understood as liberalising and modernising a constitutional framework where only traditional marital families were given constitutional recognition.
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