Obviously there’s some people who will have issues with the fact that there’s another court operating above our own and the whole [ongoing Graham Dywer case](https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/apr/05/mobile-phone-data-retention-in-graham-dwyer-case-broke-eu-law) is really not great, but at least we have this additional level that will keep our own legal system in check.

35 comments

  7. I think that’s a bit of a misunderstanding of how this operates. The US supreme court hasn’t banned abortion, its just said its not protected by the constitution and its up to individual states to decide whether they want to make it legal or not.

    The ECJ has never decreed here that abortion must be legal in all member states. Its always been up to individual countries. There’s a wide variety of practices across Europe (I think Poland is the most restrictive in the EU), and in theory a country could vote to ban abortion if they wanted to.

  8. Out protection is not from the cjeu, not remotely. The real protection we do have is twofold: our judiciary is genuinely independent and is not going to follow an ideology of the party that appointed them and much more importantly if the supreme Court decided the constitution required something that the majority of the people didn’t want we would get an opportunity to amend it by referendum. Calling a referendum in us is much more difficult and can be prevented by the rural, conservative and sparsely populated states.

  12. The US has always been a Conservative country. Looking back in its history the voters have always voted Conservative/right wing.

    There was a period in the 70’s under JFK and Johnson where it led the world on progressive social policy but, still people in Wheelchairs had to climb steps of the capital to get a disability act, passed, there was an open racist, almost became president, George Wallace, forcing Nixon to adapt the southern strategy, of courting racists to win the Presidency.

    Since then despite the election of Clinton and Obama the US has continued to over correct to the right cumulating in the election of Trump.

    Consider the fact that their has been only 8 democratic presidencies sice the 20th century. There has been 14 Conservative in that time, that will tell you enough about the average American voter.

    https://www.history.com/.amp/news/americans-with-disabilities-act-1990-capitol-crawl

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace

  14. The US is basically in a similar position to where we are now, where theres no constitutional mandate for or against abortion and no supreme court ruling for or against, power is devolved to the state and the practitioner there as its devolved to the practitioner here.

    US social media makes it out as if the world has ended, in reality in solid blue states nothing has changed, new york, california etc.. are the same as they were before. Comparing anything in that shitshow of a legal system to here is pointless though

  16. I’m all for the EU, but the European courts do present a threat to our sovereignty. Foreign judges ruling on domestic issues is problematic at best.

    As for what’s happening in America, I lived there for a period after uni and the main problem seems to be that it’s institutions aren’t working as they were intended. Their Supreme Court is meant to literally interpret their contrition, not act as another legislature. Issues like abortion would ideally be resolved via amending the constitution, but that is quite the task in and of itself. The difficult amendment process led to both parties appointing judges who simply agreed with their party on almost everything

  17. So youre happy that our own courts can be overridden by a foreign power. Great to know all the people who died to free our country wasted their time.

  18. For a country with people so obsessed with America and constantly wanting to transpose American social issues to Ireland for clout, none of them seem to understand the striking down of Roe vs Wade.

    This decision doesn’t ban abortion in the US, it means that states that want to ban abortions or place heavy restrictions on them can.

    And as for Ireland, while we did repeal the 8th amendment, we don’t exactly have abortion on demand. Woman have access to abortion, but the current legislation is quite restrictive.

  19. Ye you would think so but that’s not the case when it comes to CBD laws here in Eu and Irish Garda ignoring Eu legislation in Ireland

  21. Yes, democracy is overrated, the country shouldn’t decide what’s his own laws.
    After all Ireland used to have laws decided in London, now it’s Brussels and more precisely Luxembourg city for the legal system.
    Progress

  22. Grew up in America here – long and the short of it

    1. Congress has lacked the political will to codify things like abortion into law/US code, both sides have become reliant on the court to interpret things for national implementation based on the precedent of one or more cases on said matter

    2. It has become neigh impossible to amend the US Constitution due to hyper partisanship bordering on sectarianism rural/city divide – it takes a super majority in congress, and a super majority of states to make it come into force

    3. Congress limited it’s numbers in the 1920s to 435 in the house so gerrymandering and redistricting has become a weaponised process to keep power out of the hands of the cities

    4. The senate as an institution is broken, with disproportionate power granted to smaller, more rural states that inherently slant conservative, and one senator can bring legislation to a halt without 60 votes to end debate

    5. Social media has allowed voters to indulge in whatever truths they cling to

    6. No president post Vietnam has been able to be a unifying figure as inevitably they serve as a defacto head of a political party that the other side views as in part or in full illegitimate

    TLDR – not codifying abortion or a host of issues and relying on court precedent is a danger if opponents to societal change play a long game and wait for the abilityto put jurists in place with views contrary to the decisions/precedents no matter how supported they may be

  25. The fact that we can change our constitution by referendum is key. The problem in America is that the procedure for changing the constitution requires bipartisan co-ordination of two thirds of individual states’ governments, which is next to impossible in the current political climate and has been for decades.

    This obviously gives the Supreme Court and judiciary far, far more power than they ever should have in a democracy, because with a constitution that’s next to impossible to change, any re-interpretation of any part of it by the Supreme Court involves sweeping changes to the basic rule of law which are entirely unaccountable and not properly subject to any form whatsoever of democratic oversight.

    That’s really the root of all this. When the constitution is moronically inflexible, those with the power to interpret it are essentially elevated above literally everybody else in the country. That was never how the architects of a democratic system intended the judiciary to operate, but it’s where America’s flawed political system has left it.

  26. The European Courts do not keep our own legal system in check. Our government can and does use juryless courts to convict as they please and European oversight makes no difference, to use one example.

    Closest they’ve come to protecting the Irish people I can think of was when the European Commission of Human Rights found that Britain was torturing Irish prisoners of war. And then after this finding was appealed the European Court of Human Rights found that actually it wasn’t torture, the pain inflicted on Irish prisoners of war to extract information was apparently not severe enough to amount to torture.

    The European Courts are part of establishment governance in this country and across Europe and they function to protect that establishment, not the people. Only we can keep our own legal system in check.

  29. How much protection does our supreme court judiciary offer when it’s happy to give a boy a sex conviction for schoolboy antics of slapping another boy on the bare arse.

    They are a cosseted elite, completely out of touch, aloof from society.

  30. Tbh if it needed a ref to overturn abortion in the USA they wouldn’t even try as the numbers are so clear same as Ireland.

  32. The judicial system was suppose to keep things in check in America too.

    The idea that 3 branches of government will keep each other in check doesn’t work when all 3 branches are corrupt and pursue self interests over the will of its people.

  33. I wouldn’t get overly complacent though. Just look at the UK. It can shift so easily if politicians think they can get away with it

  35. The US is a collection of states (hence the name) with a federal government that is restricted in its jurisdiction.The 10th amendment (the first 10 amendments were written together, the so called Bill of Rights) says that anything not covered in the constitution is left to the states. That’s all the Roe ruling means, it goes back to states to make laws re. abortion (or the federal government explicitly allows abortion on a federal level, something for the legislature to do, not the court). That said it’s very rare for the court to overturn itself but Roe v Wade passed with a slim liberal majority, since the court has swung conservative, it’s not a huge surprise – the issue isn’t really about abortion but that conservatives prefer a limited federal government and more individual state sovereignty.

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