Sinn Féin Funds case
Irish court case / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Sinn Féin Funds case[1] (Buckley and Others v. Attorney General and Another) was a 1942–1948 Irish court case in which the Sinn Féin party claimed ownership of funds deposited with the High Court in 1924 which had belonged to the Sinn Féin party before 1923. The Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, which attempted to halt the court case and assign the funds to Bord Cistí Sinn Féin, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in an important judgement on separation of powers and private property rights. The original action was subsequently decided against Sinn Féin, on the basis that the pre-1923 party was separate from the 1940s party. Most of the disputed funds were consumed by legal costs.
Buckley and Others v. Attorney General and Another | |
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Court | Supreme Court of Ireland |
Full case name | Margaret Buckley, Séamus Mitchell, Séamus O'Neill, Padraig Power, Mairéad McElroy, Séamus Russell, Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire, Seán Poole, Joseph Fowler and Seán Ua Ceallaigh, on behalf of themselves and all other Members of the Sinn Féin Organisation established in the year 1905 and reconstituted in the year 1917 v. The Attorney General of Éire and Charles Stewart Power |
Decided | 31 July 1947 (1947-07-31) |
Citation(s) | [1950] 1 IR 67 |
Case history | |
Prior action(s) | Application by the Attorney General to the High Court in accordance with the Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947 to dismiss an action taken by the plaintiffs. |
Appealed from | High Court |
Court membership | |
Judges sitting | Murnaghan, Geoghegan, O'Byrne, Black and Martin Maguire JJ. |
Case opinions | |
The passing of legislation by the Oireachtas to stay an ongoing court case was an unconstitutional interference by the Oireachtas with the operation of the Courts in a purely judicial domain and the Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947 was also incompatible with personal property rights contained in Art. 43 of the Constitution. | |
Decision by | Murnaghan J. |
Concurrence | Geoghegan, O'Byrne, Black and Martin Maguire JJ. |
Keywords | |
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