 | ||
| ||
To expand the definition of the family | ||
The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023 (bill no. 91 of 2023) is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland to expand the definition of the family. On 8 March 2024, referendums will be held on the amendment and on the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023. [1] [2]
The bill was introduced by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on 8 December 2023. [3] It passed the Dáil on 17 January 2024 [4] and the Seanad on 23 January. [5]
If approved in the referendum, the bill would amend two provisions of the Constitution.
Article 41.1.1° would be amended by the addition of the text in bold:
The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships, 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.
Article 41.3.1° currently reads:
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.
Under the Thirty-ninth Amendment, the following text would be substituted for this subsection:
The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage and to protect it against attack.
There will be a separate simultaneous referendum on the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023, which proposes to delete the existing Article 41.2; if it passes, then Article 41.3 (whether amended or not) will be renumbered Article 41.2, and hence Article 41.3.1° will become Article 41.2.1°.
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. The constitution, based on a system of representative democracy, is broadly within the tradition of liberal democracy. It guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected non-executive president, a bicameral parliament, a separation of powers and judicial review.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1972 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which lowered the voting age for all national elections and referendums in the state from twenty-one to eighteen years of age. It was approved by referendum on 7 December 1972 and signed into law on 5 January 1973.
The Seventh Amendment of the Constitution Act 1979 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland that provides that the procedure for the election of six members of the Senate in the university constituencies could be altered by law. It was approved by referendum on 5 July 1979 and signed into law on 3 August of the same year.
The Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1984 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland that allowed for the extension of the right to vote in elections to Dáil Éireann to non-Irish citizens. It was approved by referendum on 14 June 1984, the same day as the European Parliament election, and signed into law on 2 August of the same year.
Amendments to the Constitution of Ireland are only possible by way of referendum. A proposal to amend the Constitution of Ireland must first be passed as a bill by both Houses of the Oireachtas (parliament), then submitted to a referendum, and finally signed into law by the President of Ireland. Since the constitution entered into force on 29 December 1937, there have been 32 amendments to the constitution.
An ordinary referendum in Ireland is a referendum on a bill other than a bill to amend the Constitution. The Constitution prescribes the process in Articles 27 and 47. Whereas a constitutional referendum is mandatory for a constitutional amendment bill, an ordinary referendum occurs only if the bill "contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained". This is decided at the discretion of the President, after a petition by Oireachtas members including a majority of Senators. No such petition has ever been presented, and thus no ordinary referendum has ever been held.
The Oireachtas of the Irish Free State was the legislature of the Irish Free State from 1922 until 1937. It was established by the 1922 Constitution of Ireland which was based from the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was the first independent Irish Parliament officially recognised outside Ireland since the historic Parliament of Ireland which was abolished with the Acts of Union 1800.
The Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1958 was a proposal to amend the Constitution of Ireland to alter the electoral system from proportional representation under the single transferable vote (PR-STV) to first-past-the-post (FPTP). The proposal was rejected in a referendum held on 17 June 1959. This was the same date as the presidential election in which Taoiseach Éamon de Valera was elected as president.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1968 was a bill to amend the Constitution of Ireland to alter the electoral system for elections to Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas, from proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV) to first-past-the-post (FPTP). It was one of two referendums on the elections held on 16 October 1968, the other being a proposal to allow a greater variance in representation. Both bills were rejected.
A Referendum Commission was an independent statutory body in Ireland which had been set up in advance of referendums in Ireland from 1998 to 2019. The Referendum Act 1998 as amended by the Referendum Act 2001 provided for the establishment of the body. It was superseded in 2023 by the Electoral Commission, established on a permanent basis.
Seanad Éireann is the upper house of the Oireachtas, which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann.
The Convention on the Constitution was established in Ireland in 2012 to discuss proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ireland. More commonly called simply the Constitutional Convention, it met for the first time 1 December 2012 and sat until 31 March 2014. It had 100 members: a chairman; 29 members of the Oireachtas (parliament); four representatives of Northern Ireland political parties; and 66 randomly selected citizens of Ireland.
The Thirty-second Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2013 was a proposal to amend the Constitution of Ireland to abolish Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Irish parliament, the Oireachtas. The proposal was rejected by the electorate in a referendum on 4 October 2013 by 51.7% voting against to 48.3% in favour.
The Marriage Act 2015 is an act of the Oireachtas which provides for same-sex marriage in Ireland. The act gives legislative effect in statute law to the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which mandates such provision. It was introduced on 15 September 2015 and signed into law on 29 October 2015, and commenced on 16 November 2015.
The Citizens' Assembly is a citizens' assembly established in Ireland in 2016 to consider several political questions including the Constitution of Ireland. Questions considered include: abortion, fixed term parliaments, referendums, population ageing, and climate change. Over 18 months a report is produced on each topic. The government is required to respond officially to the reports in the Oireachtas (parliament); as of 9 April 2019 responses have been given on three of the five topics.
The Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which altered the provisions regulating divorce. It removed the constitutional requirement for a defined period of separation before a Court may grant a dissolution of marriage, and eased restrictions on the recognition of foreign divorces. The amendment was effected by an act of the Oireachtas, the Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act 2019.
Various proposals have been considered since the 1980s to extend the franchise in Irish presidential elections to citizens resident outside the state. In 2019, the then government introduced a bill to amend the constitution to facilitate this extension. The bill lapsed in January 2020 when the 32nd Dáil was dissolved for the 2020 general election, but was restored to the order paper in July 2020.
Two bills to amend the constitution of Ireland will be put to referendums on 8 March 2024. The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2023 would revise the definition of family to explicitly include durable relationships outside marriage. The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 would remove references to a woman's "life within the home" and "duties in the home", with the addition of a new Article on care within the family.
The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland to revise references to care within the family. On 8 March 2024, referendums will be held on the amendment and on on the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2023.
 | This article relating to law in Ireland is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This Ireland politics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |