Page:The Irish Constitution Explained.djvu/25

 future citizenship is referred to legislation. It properly belongs to legislation, since it includes a number of complex matters and details quite unsuited to a Constitution. Yet there must be an original citizenship, otherwise the service of the state could not begin. Article 3, therefore, states what constitutes the original citizenship of Saorstat Eireann; and leaves all matters "governing the future acquisition and termination of citizenship" to be "determined by law," making it a constitutional provision, however, that "men and women have equal rights as citizens." And Article 4 provides that the official language of that citizenship shall be the Irish language.

From these original citizens, and from whomever shall be admitted to citizenship in the future, all the authority of the State derives under the Constitution. They are the base of the pyramid, and it is they who in the Constitution (according to the plan on which it is framed) confer on certain persons and organisations definite powers of Government in Ireland. But the authority which can confer, can also withhold; and from the powers which they grant, certain matters are withheld. For there are matters which comprise the fundamental rights of their sovereignty, with which no Government created by them can interfere. If the Government had existed, or had claimed to have existed, of its own original right, it could, being itself sovereign, have acted as it pleased; and in past times it did so. But since Government under the Constitution exists only by reason of an authority conferred by a sovereign people, these Fundamental Rights of their sovereignty are kept apart; and no authority—legislative, executive or judicial—and no power of Government is conceded the right to touch them.

Therefore in the first section of the Constitution, where the original authority of the people is stated, certain matters are withheld. They are described as Fun^mental Rights. The liberty of the Person, the Inviolability of the Dwelling, Freedom of Conscience and the Free Practice and Profession of Religion, the Free Expression of Opinion, Free