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"Justice Laffoy had stated in her High Court opinion that there was
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Nero
fiddles while Rome burns?by W. Finnerty. Tue Aug 21, 2007
10:36
Vincent Salafia (Aug 20, 2007 21:24
above),
We have a situation at the present time whereby some of the
most important heritage sites in the nation are under immanent threat of being
badly damaged and/or COMPLETELY destroyed through the application of our
National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004, which many (including yourself
apparently) believe is unconstitutional, or ILLEGAL in other words. (Some
extremely important heritage sites have already been destroyed using this Act I
understand.)
Yet, you apparently feel we should all be focussing on
some lost or missing files that may (or may not?) be important at some later
point in time. I hope you won't mind me saying this, and please note that I
genuinely have no wish whatsoever to be offensive towards you, this approach
does not seem at all appropriate to me. It's as if (from my viewpoint) somebody
with two broken legs, and two broken arms, desperately needs your help, and you
are advising them that the first and most important thing they should do is to
have their teeth examined by a good dentist?
As I have already
related above, constitutional law expert
Dr Gerard Hogan (Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin), who was a member of your legal team in early 2006, also
believes that our
National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004 is
UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Please note again his statement in the
January 14th
2006 Daily Telegraph article:
"Gerry Hogan, senior counsel for
Mr Salafia, claimed the legislation used to push through the project was
unconstitutional. He said the
National Monuments (Amendment)
Act 2004 weakened the role of the Oireachtas (Ireland's national parliament)
by giving the minister discretionary powers to determine the fate of the
country's heritage. Mr Hogan claimed the state's duty to protect monuments had
been 'seriously compromised'."
Also, I've had a look this
morning at your
Tara Watch PRESS RELEASE dated 29 July 2006, which I have
reproduced below.
In view of all that's happened in the meantime,
it seems to me that the contents of your press release below now raises a number
of extremely important issues.
Consider, for example, the following
sentence relating to the "Hill of Tara M3 Case":
"Justice Laffoy
had stated in her High Court opinion that there was in fact a 'constitutional
imperative' to protect these assets." I (for one) couldn't
agree more with Justice Laffoy; but, why I wonder has Justice Laffoy not been
listened to by her colleagues in the judiciary?
It's also clear
from the PRESS RELEASE text below that our
Chief Justice, the Hon. Mr.
Justice John Murray, has been heavily involved in all of this dark and messy
business: which I personally find very scary.
Basically, the whole
situation regarding the legality of our National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004
appears to REMAIN full of major contradictions, doubts, and uncertainties:
despite the
EUROS 600,000 your case has cost the taxpayer.
This, I
believe is the issue that should now be receiving TOP PRIORITY by the whole
nation; and until its legality is all properly sorted out, by the
Supreme
Court, I don't believe it is right for ANYBODY to be assuming this Act is
legal.
Neither do I believe that any of the
Tara
protestors should be tried in our courts of law until
AFTER
the Supreme Court has clearly decided on the heavily doubtful and disputed
constitutionality of our National Monuments (Amendment) Act
2004.
==============
PRESS
RELEASE TaraWatch 29 July
2006 ‘Chief Justice
Postpones Setting Hearing Date for
Hill of Tara M3 Case’
The setting of a hearing date in the Hill of
Tara / M3 motorway case was postponed today by the
Chief Justice, the Hon.
Mr. Justice John Murray. He said he will set a hearing date after written
submissions were received by The Attorney General, The Minister for the
Environment, Meath County Council, and the National Roads Authority, due on 24th
July.
Gerard Hogan, SC, Counsel for the Appellant, Mr. Vincent
Salafia, asked for an early hearing date to be set, since he had given
undertakings in the High Court that he would do so.
Chief
Justice Murray questioned whether there was any urgency in the case, since there
is no injunction in place and no stoppage of
works. Counsel for Meath County Council argued
that there as a “considerable shadow” hanging over the project in relation to
the
PPP (public private partnership)
contract, which
cannot be signed
until the matter is through the courts.
This
morning Chief Justice Murray also set a date of July 28th for delivery of
judgment in the Carrickmines Castle case, which has been postponed a number of
times already. The judgment in this case will have a significant impact on the
Tara proceedings, since it will address whether or not there is a constitutional
duty on the Government to protect the national heritage.
Justice
Laffoy had stated in her High Court opinion that there was in fact a
“constitutional imperative” to protect these
assets. ENDS ==================
Related
Link: http://www.constitutionofireland.com ==============================
The above text has
been copied from the following Indymedia (Ireland)
location:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83821&comment_limit=0&condense_comments=false#comment204971
===
For future reference
purposes a copy of this e-mail will later today be placed at the following
Internet address:
http://www.europeancourtofhumanrightswilliamfinnerty.com/ChiefJusticeMurray/21August2007/Email.htm ===
this month.
