Interpreting Constitution in light of foreign court decisions

DECISIONS MADE in courts outside Ireland can greatly assist in the interpretation of the Irish Constitution, Mr Justice John Murray has said. In a speech to the American Bar Association international law conference in Dublin recently, the Supreme Court judge told delegates that “reliance on judicial rationale in foreign-sitting courts resolving similar questions does not have to compromise the identity of one’s own”.

Mr Justice Murray has just retired as chief justice following the expiry of his seven-year term, but remains a member of the Supreme Court.

In his keynote address to the conference, Mr Justice Murray said there had been an incremental growth in the spread of ideas and concepts of justice across the world.

With the click of a mouse, an Indian student could access the data banks of American and European universities, he said, and judges had access to decisions on the websites of supreme courts.

“Courts, particularly supreme courts, are more than ever looking at how complex juris prudential problems are resolved in judicial decisions of foreign countries and being inspired by the rationale which underlie such resolutions,” he said. The “terrain on which this tends to occur” was that of “fundamental aspects of fundamental rights”, such as the death penalty, the rights of minorities and the right to life.

The flow of information across the web showed that the same socio-legal issues posed challenges in all modern societies irrespective of legal systems.

The impact of globalisation on the administration of justice, or the evolution of “judicial cosmopolitanism”, had given rise to controversy reflecting a fear of cultural or constitutional pollution.

But enriching our knowledge “need not be seen as a Trojan horse storming national constitutional interpretation,” he said.

“The interpretation of the Constitution of Ireland, which contains express and explicit guarantees of due process and the fundamental rights of citizens, may at times be greatly assisted by recourse to comparative law method of interpretation of decisions of other courts,” Mr Justice Murray said.

“The reliance on judicial rational in foreign-sitting courts resolving similar questions does not have to compromise the identity of one’s own.”

It was part of the “grand dialogue” taking place today between supreme courts and all supreme court judges, both judicially and extra-judicially, he said.

“The national judge, remaining true to his or her constitutional principles, is the filter through which universally discussed ideas enlighten but do not necessarily determine the interpretation of his or her own constitution, in which must always be found the essential ingredients for the justification of his or her judicial conclusions,” he said.

“In this context, the search for knowledge and enlightenment across national boundaries seems to me to be entirely legitimate.”

He said he did not believe that judicial solutions to complex problems could be passed “always and exclusively through the myopic lens” of purely national view.

“Justice was not born one day, some time ago, in one country. It had to be found time and time again as societies evolve and new challenges arise in an ever converging world,” Mr Justice Murray said.

“We should be willing to enrich our knowledge and wisdom from sources wherever they are to be found.”