Second Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland

The Second Amendment of the Constitution Act 1941 (previously bill no. 40 of 1941) is an amendment of the Constitution of Ireland that was in the form of omnibus legislation affecting a variety of articles on a range of subject matters. It was signed into law on 30 May 1941. The most important changes introduced by the amendment included restrictions on the right to habeas corpus, an extension of the right of the government to declare a state of emergency, changes to provisions on the reference of bills to the Supreme Court by the President and various changes that were needed to bring the official Irish text of the constitution into line with the English text. An unusual aspect of the Second Amendment was that it introduced a change to Article 56 of the Transitory Provisions even though that article was no longer a part of the official published text of the constitution. The Second Amendment was not submitted to a referendum. Under Article 51 of the Transitory Provisions, the constitution could be amended during the initial period of 1938 to 1941 without the need for a referendum and so the Second Amendment could be adopted in the same manner as any other law. The amendment was adopted partly as the last chance to implement a list of desired changes before the provisions of Article 51 lapsed. The amendment was enacted during the Fianna Fáil government of Éamon de Valera. The Second Amendment introduced the following changes to the constitution: Reference of bills to the Supreme Court: Altered Article 26, which deals with the referral by the president of a bill to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. Most importantly, the amendment introduced a requirement that when ruling on a bill referred to it by the president under his reserve powers, the Supreme Court can issue only one opinion, and no dissenting opinions are permitted. That was in keeping with the practice in many civil law supreme courts and was intended to promote legal certainty.