familiar
would, as has been indicated, involve injustices enough; but they would
concern only the individual or some corporate enterprise. The injustice
would exist; but it would be limited; and lawyers of another country might
be supposed to wish to search for justice, even if the trading enterprise
had its seat in their own nation and the individual were Irish. But a
Constitution is the very charter of a nation's freedom.

Cases concerning an interpretation of the Constitution are vital to a
whole people, and, as between two nations, vital to international safety
and polity. And such cases could, under the circumstances, only arise
between two nations, Ireland, whose the Constitution is, and England,
whose the Constitution is not, and where parties might arise to power who
would intrigue to impeach that Constitution. Moreover, in England it is
frequently the practice to recruit the higher offices of the Judiciary,
not from men of acknowledged skill in the achievement of equity, but
rather from men who have snatched a casual eminence in the heat of party
strife, men of political passions and political prejudices, who have come
to the front by the very profession of partisanship. It is such men who
will form for the most part the lawyers of the Judicial Committee. Even if
the road to that Committee were of the straightest and purest legal
character, no reasonable person would expect it to deliver impartial
judgment on the Fundamental Law of another nation, especially if an
adjustment of the liberties of two nations were concerned, one of those
nations being, more than conceivably, their own. But since the road is,
admittedly, neither of the straightest nor of the purest, the expectation
of impartial and indifferent justice would be a fool's dream. And where a
Court exists from which a people presumes injustice in advance, the wells
of security and good order are at once poisoned.

Yet, even supposing that these questions of justice are neglected, how is
the system likely to work? How has it, in fact, worked elsewhere? Assume
that a case has been decided in a certain way by the Supreme Court in
Ireland. It is carried to the Judicial Committee, which decides in favour
of the opposite party. How is such a decision of the Judicial Committee to
be put into effect? Such cases have occurred in Australia; and the
Australian High Court has refused to recognise the decisions of the
Judicial Committee, or to give them effect. Spec