On Monday, February 22nd
2016, the Supreme Court resumed its hearing of the challenge by Joan Collins TD
into the constitutionality of the €31bn Promissory Note debt.
First on his feet, to
finish where he had left off on Thursday last and to summarise his argument,
was John Rogers SC, acting on behalf of Joan. He had been granted that extra
time – ten minutes – by Chief Justice Susan Denham. John being John, ten became
15 became 20, until eventually the amiable Susan’s gentle reminders took effect…
He used that time to good
effect however, reinforcing his already forceful argument of last Thursday that
in assuming sole responsibility in signing off on the Promissory Notes that put
Ireland on the hook for €31bn of debt, then Finance Minister also assumed a responsibility
that exceeded his authority and his government’s authority under the Constitution.
BALLYHEA SAYS NO CAMPAIGN
To digress for a
paragraph: This is the same €31bn the ECB insists that under rule, and because Anglo
didn’t come good on those billions, must now be taken back out of circulation. They
have ‘called in’ the government Promissory Notes, so to speak, and that €31bn
is currently being borrowed in stages by our National Treasury Management
Agency, given to our Central Bank and being destroyed by them. Already €6bn has
been borrowed and destroyed, €2bn of that last year alone, with €25bn still
being held and awaiting the same fate – those are 25 billion good reasons why
we in the Ballyhea Says No campaign will this Sunday complete five years of
weekly marching and continuous campaigning, in parallel with what Joan Collins,
David Hall and John Rogers are doing in the Four Courts. If we lose, that
entire debt, plus the interest, is loaded onto the shoulders of future
generations – in 2016, this is not the legacy we want to leave our kids. It’s a
fight we may not win, we’re aware of that, but at least we’re ENGAGING; our government
surrendered without even an argument, never mind a fight.
ARTICLE OF FAITH
Anyway, back to John
Rogers. Article 11 of the Constitution is what John using to underpin his
argument, which goes as follows:
All
revenues of the State from whatever source arising shall, subject to such
exception as may be provided by law, form one fund, and shall be appropriated
for the purposes and in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities
determined and imposed by law.
Because the Promissory
Notes were never voted on by the Dáil, never mind approved ‘subject to the charges and liabilities determined and imposed by law’.
There are no exceptions
to this, he argued, and on Monday, used several examples from the German Courts
and the German Constitution (which is similar in that context to ours) to
bolster his argument.
SECOND HALF
The ball was then in
Michael McDowell’s court, also a Senior Counsel, also a former Attorney General
but given that he is also a former Minister for Justice, trumping Mr Rogers in
the ‘honours’ department.
He is a formidable
debater, is Michael McDowell, more fluid in his delivery than the ultra-painstaking
John Rogers, more casual even in his stance, lifting his knee occasionally to
rest against the lectern from which he was speaking.
He began early with a
claim that an opinion on the Promissory Notes expressed in the Dáil was
automatically the opinion of the Oireachtas and thus satisfied the conditions
of Article 11. Maybe I misheard, maybe I misinterpreted, but those around me
were of the same opinion I had reached, that as an assumption on which to base
the power of one person to assume any debt for any length of time on behalf of
a nation, this was a hell of a stretch!
He then went on to
outline what he saw as legal precedent after legal precedent for the Promissory
Note, including (on a couple of occasions) the pay and pension of the Judges
themselves, set in Statute but the amount for which is not set in stone.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE, BITE
YOUR LIP
The way the Court seems
to operate is that each side gets their own time to argue their case, so just
as Michael had to sit through John’s presentation, so John now had to bite his
tongue as Michael took his shots.
Those of us watching all
this though had our own thoughts and I couldn’t help wondering – NONE of the
precedents presented by Michael McDowell matched the Promissory Notes, not in
the scale of the exposure, not in the fact that all those other examples would
have been debated in the Dáil at some stage, not in the fact that Brian Lenihan
had time and opportunity to present the Promissory Notes to the Dáil for its
consideration but didn’t (for whatever reason). He brought up for example a
putative tunnel connection between Ireland and Wales, the cost for which would
have to be committed to by one Dáil but the annual payments for which would be
passed on to future generations, without the power to reject those payment –
surely though the original ‘spend’ would have been debated and approved by the
Oireachtas, no?
While none of us could
voice those questions, the same doesn’t apply to the Judges and boy, did they
give Mr McDowell a going over, so much so that on occasion he was reduced to
near silence, had to concede he was unable to give an answer. As Michael was
arguing at one stage that the Dáil, which hadn’t had any opportunity to debate
the Promissory Notes, could merely give the nod to the subsequent payments (the
annual destruction of money), Judge Charleton interrupted with an interesting
analogy, ‘So in household budget terms, the Oireachtas can debate the groceries
but not the mortgage?’.
HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE?
There was one argument
put by Mr McDowell that may have major significance later, when this case ends
up in the European Court of Justice (as I think is inevitable, should it be
lost). Monetary financing – direct central-bank funding of government
expenditure – is expressly prohibited by the ECB. In his presentation Mr McDowell
reiterated something that had been said during the High Court hearing, that the
instant the Promissory Notes were issued they became capital, an infusion of
finance into the then insolvent Anglo Irish Bank. This capital came from the
Emergency Liquidity Assistance fund, those funds drawn down by the Central Bank
of Ireland. What was that if not monetary financing? What was that if not a
blatantly illegal use of a fund that was to be used – explicitly, by ECB rule –
ONLY for solvent institutions?
Just over a month ago a
group of us from the Ballyhea/Charleville campaign, in company with two TDs and
an MEP (Joan Collins, Catherine Murphy and Marian Harkin, respectively), met
the new Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Phillip Lane, and he argued
that the Promissory Notes made Anglo solvent – if the Promissory Note and the
capital injection were simultaneous, how can that be?
SMALL PRINT…
This is just a very brief
overview of what was an intense four-hour presentation, and just a layman’s
overview at that of what were very detailed legal arguments, so please bear
that in mind.
As outlined in the report
of the first day’s proceedings, this is a case of enormous significance for us
all. A win for Joan Collins and it means the Promissory Note debts were
unconstitutional, that debt illegal; a loss, and it means that any and all future
Ministers for Finance can assume – on his her/his own – responsibility for any
amount of debt for the State. That’s kind of important like…
For those of us who have
been following the case there will be yet another day out in the Supreme Court,
when John Rogers will have his final say. Then will come the deliberations, the
seven Judges going beyond what was presented to them and digging out their own
precedents, using their own considerable separate and joint experience.
Whatever people’s own
experiences of the lower courts in this country, where the administration of ‘justice’
can be haphazard at times (depending on the individual judge, even the mood on
that particular day), the Supreme Court is impressive, very impressive.
Stay tuned…
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| L to R: Diarmuid O'Flynn, Joan Collins TD, David Hall, Catherine Murphy TD |
