Ireland 1937 Constitution (reviewed 2019)

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

PERSONAL RIGHTS

ARTICLE 40

1. 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.

2

1. 1. 1. Titles of nobility shall not be conferred by the State.
      2. No title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government.

3

1. 1. 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.
      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.
      3. Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.

4

1. 1. No citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty save in accordance with law.
   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.
   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 Court of Appeal 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 Court of Appeal has determined the question so referred to it.
   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.
   5. 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.
   6. Provision may be made by law for the refusal of bail by a court to a person charged with a serious offence where it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence by that person.
2. 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:
   1. The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour 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 seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

   2. 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 the Oireachtas.
   3. 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.
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.

THE FAMILY

ARTICLE 41

1

1. The State recognises 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.
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 recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour 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.
2. A Court designated by law may grant a dissolution of marriage where, but only where, it is satisfied that
   1. there is no reasonable prospect of a reconciliation between the spouses,
   2. such provision as the Court considers proper having regard to the circumstances exists or will be made for the spouses, any children of either or both of them and any other person prescribed by law, and
   3. any further conditions prescribed by law are complied with.
3. Provision may be made by law for the recognition under the law of the State of a dissolution of marriage granted under the civil law of another state.

1. Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.

EDUCATION

ARTICLE 42

1. 1. The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
   2. Parents shall be free to provide this education in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State.

3

1. 1. The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.
   2. The State shall, however, as guardian of the common good, require in view of actual conditions that the children receive a certain minimum education, moral, intellectual and social.
2. The State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour 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.

CHILDREN

Article 42A

1. 1. The State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights.

2

1. 1. In exceptional cases, where the parents, regardless of their marital status, fail in their duty towards their children to such extent that the safety or welfare of any of their children is likely to be prejudicially affected, the State as guardian of the common good shall, by proportionate means as provided by law, endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child.
   2. Provision shall be made by law for the adoption of any child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their duty towards the child and where the best interests of the child so require.
2. Provision shall be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption and the adoption of any child.

4

1. Provision shall be made by law that in the resolution of all proceedings—
   1. brought by the State, as guardian of the common good, for the purpose of preventing the safety and welfare of any child from being prejudicially affected, or
   2. concerning the adoption, guardianship or custody of, or access to, any child,

   the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.

2. Provision shall be made by law for securing, as far as practicable, that in all proceedings referred to in subsection 1° of this section in respect of any child who is capable of forming his or her own views, the views of the child shall be ascertained and given due weight having regard to the age and maturity of the child.

PRIVATE PROPERTY

ARTICLE 43

1

1. The State acknowledges that man, in virtue of his rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the private ownership of external goods.
2. The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.

2

1. The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.
2. The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.

RELIGION

ARTICLE 44

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 honour 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. The State guarantees not to endow any religion.
3. The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status.
4. Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending religious instruction at that school.
5. Every religious denomination shall have the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property, movable and immovable, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes.
6. The property of any religious denomination or any educational institution shall not be diverted save for necessary works of public utility and on payment of compensation.