THE Supreme Court has reserved judgment on whether or not the Employment Equality Bill 1996 is unconstitutional.
The Bill was referred to the Supreme Court by the President, Mrs Robinson, on April 3rd under Article 26 of the Constitution. The court has 60 days from the date of the referral to give its decision. The Bill was passed by the Dail on March 26th.
Yesterday the five judges reserved judgment on the sixth day of hearing. The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, said he would like to thank the legal teams for their submissions in an admittedly difficult matter. The court now had to proceed to decide.
The Supreme Court had appointed two legal teams, the first to argue against the Bill and the second to submit arguments in favour of the constitutionality of the Bill on behalf of the Attorney General.
The court heard during the six days that the scope of the Bill was to set out a series of provisions prohibiting discrimination on almost every conceivable ground as they concerned or affected employees.
The Bill permitted certain exceptions to the treatment of employees which allowed for an employer to discriminate. These categories included the grounds of religion, sexual propensity, disability, marital status and age.
Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, arguing against the Bill said that, while it purported to legislate for equality, the number of exceptions provided for promoted unequal treatment and highlighted differences among employees.
He said the exception based on religion gave them the greatest concern. It proposed that a religious, educational or medical institution under the direction or control of a body established for religious purposes should not be taken to discriminate if it was reasonable to do so to maintain the religious ethos.
The Bill gave far too wide a discretion to the religious institutions and that would promote significant discrimination between people of different religions.
Ms Mary Finlay SC, for the Attorney General, said no constitutional, statutory, contractual or property rights of any persons as employees would be interfered with in the passing of the Bill.
She said that under the Bill, an employer in a religious institution would no longer be entitled to discriminate on the basis of religion as he was going to have to establish that it was reasonable to prefer somebody else.