Court upholds right to Irish version of laws

The Supreme Court has strongly criticised the State's failure to provide official Irish translations of laws and important legal materials.

This failure was "at its grossest" since 1980, with only a small and uncertain number of statutes being translated haphazardly and in response to litigation or threats of such, Mr Justice Hardiman said.

This was an offence "to the letter and spirit of the Constitution" (where Article 8 states the Irish language, as the national language, is the first official language) and a failure for which the apparent lack of staff in the office of the chief translator in the Houses of the Oireachtas "is no sort of excuse", he added.

This "policy of inertia" was a clear and obvious breach of Article 25.4.4 of the Constitution which stipulates, where the President signs a Bill in one of the two official languages, an official translation shall be issued in the other.

The State's response to this was "unworthy" in that, while conceding its obligation to provide translations, it argued the Constitution did not say when these had to be provided, the judge remarked. This meant years might elapse - decades in some cases.

Mr Justice Hardiman was delivering his judgment upholding an appeal by Mr Seamus O Beolain, of Springfield, Tallaght, Dublin, against the High Court's refusal to grant him two declarations. By a 2/1 majority the Supreme Court granted declarations that the State has a constitutional obligation to supply the official translations of the Acts of the Oireachtas in Irish when the President signed a Bill in English and to supply the official translation of the rules of the District Court in Irish.

Mr O Beolain had sought the Rules and the official Irish translations of the Road Traffic Acts 1994 and 1995 to answer a charge of drink driving under the Road Traffic Acts (RTA). He was summonsed to appear before the District Court in September 1997 and said he wished to conduct the case in Irish and to have Irish translations of relevant documents. When he had not received the official translations by March 1998, he took judicial review proceedings.

The High Court refused to grant the declarations sought and also refused an order prohibiting his trial until the relevant translated materials were provided.

Yesterday, two of three Supreme Court judges upheld the appeal against the refusal to make the two declarations sought but they also refused to prohibit the trial.

However, Mr Justice Hardiman strongly indicated that if translations were not promptly provided in future, the court might consider such orders appropriate in other cases. He said Mr O Beolain's prosecution had been deferred for some four years for one reason only - because he had asserted his constitutional rights as an Irish speaker.

In her decision upholding the appeal, Ms Justice McGuinness said the State was simply unwilling to provide the resources to fulfil its clear constitutional duty and it was desirable for the court publicly to stress the mandatory nature of that duty.

Dissenting, Mr Justice Geoghegan remarked it might well be that the right to conduct a case in Irish was not an absolute one and circumstances could arise where a court or tribunal could insist on its being conducted in English. A final determination of that matter must await a fully argued out case before a five-judge Supreme Court, he said.