I may take only one instance. Article 9 of the Constitution protects the right of free expression of opinion, the right of free assembly, and the right of forming associations not opposed to public morality. Now it hardly needs to be said that no Government likes the expression of opinions hostile to itself. And no Government likes associations formed to bring its hour to an end. Under the Constitution the minorities of the day have the honest chance of becoming the majorities of the morrow in a peaceable manner. But what would be the worth of this honest chance before a powerful Government unless these protections, these rights of a sovereign people, were placed in the care of the third institution of the Constitution, the institution entrusted with the interpretation and enforcement of laws?
It is true that the Judiciary may abuse its power (since power is nearly always abused) by interpreting social reform, let us say, to be "opposed to public morality." But in this connection, it is right to remember, first, that judgment is not reserved only to one Court, but to two Courts--to the High Court, with appeal to the Supreme Court. And it is right to remember, next, that the people have always in their possession the instruments of the Initiative and the Referendum, by which they may require either the Fundamental Law or later laws to be amended to meet their need. There are, therefore, considerable safeguards in the Constitution against abuse. Yet, even so, because one-fourth of a fundamental right may be jeopardised by an abuse of the Judicial Power, that is no reason why four-fourths should be surrendered to the abuse of the Executive Power.
Therefore the Judiciary is placed in care of the provisions of the Constitution, not to imperil but to protect them. The rights conferred in the Constitution are the People's rights. The Constitution is the People's Constitution. The Judiciary is the People's Judiciary. It is for the people, by alert and active citizenship, to make them so in every real sense.
In the section dealing with the Judiciary one provision lends itself at once to criticism. It is hostile, on the face of it, to the entire spirit of the Constitution. It has everywhere created bitterness and irritation among the other co-equal members of the Commonwealth of Nations, which Ireland has now joined. If the purpose of life, therefore, is to learn from experience as one may reasonably believe, in spite of an apparently united conviction to the contrary, a new State at the outset of its career would be well advised not to create trouble for the future, and others would be well advised to honour that quite reasonable wish. And yet in this provision there lies hid a principle of very great meaning, if it could be extracted, separated from its feudal lumber, and wrought upon creatively.