The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

Eoin Carolan

Having regard to the purposive Christian ethos of the Constitution, par-

ticularly as set out in the preamble . . . to the denomination of the State as 

‘sovereign, independent, democratic’ in Article 5, and to the recognition, 

expressly or by necessary implication, of particular personal rights . . . there 

is necessarily given to the citizen, within the required social, political and 

moral framework, such a range of personal freedoms or immunities as are 

necessary to ensure his dignity and freedom as an individual in the type of 

society envisaged. The essence of those rights is that they inhere in the indi-

vidual personality of the citizen in his capacity as a vital human component 

of the social, political and moral order posited by the Constitution.

Amongst those basic personal rights is a complex of rights which vary in 

nature, purpose and range (each necessarily being a facet of the citizen’s core 

of individuality within the constitutional order) and which may be compen-

diously referred to as the right of privacy.

44

His fellow dissenting judge echoed this dignitarian analysis. McCarthy J drew 

a distinction between a conception of natural law which blindly reflected 

Christian theology and, on other hand, one informed by ‘Christianity itself, 

the example of Christ and the great doctrine of charity which He preached’. 

Favouring the latter, he concluded:

I would uphold the view that the unenumerated rights derive from the 

human personality . . . The dignity and freedom of the individual occupy a 

prominent place in th[e Constitution’s] objectives and are not declared to be 

subject to any particular exigencies but as forming part of the promotion of 

the common good.

45

The rhetoric and reasoning of these judgments is telling in two respects. First 

of all, it is notable that the dissenting judges still felt it appropriate (or neces-

sary) to connect their dignitarian analysis of the rights of the individual with 

the self-declared Christian ethos of the constitutional text. This may have 

something to say to about the political value of connecting constitutional 

adjudication to prevailing social and moral norms.

46

Second, and somewhat conversely, while these judgments make a rhetor-

ical genuflection to Christian values, the reasoning is in principle consistent 

with secular conceptions of natural law and of human rights. Like the earlier 

natural law authorities, the Norris dissents are based on a claim that there are 

certain rights, the normative or moral value of which can be derived from 

44 

[1984] IR 36, 71.

45 

[1984] IR 36, 99–100.

46 

This point is considered in a little more detail in Section 

15.4

.

---

 

The Evolution of Natural Law in Ireland 

449