In light of some judicial decisions since 1960 should the power of judges in relation to the Irish Constitution of 1937 be re-assessed

... Constitutions are important in all countries for they affirm the basic principals according to which they should be governed. There are many definitions of a constitution, such as that provided by the Collins English Dictionary: 'the system or body of fundamental principles according to which a nation state or body politic is constituted and governed' (Collins, 1995). For the purposes of this paper a working definition will be; a document, or documents, in which the basic legal rules of the constitution are authoritatively declared (Doolan, 1988). In the overwhelming majority of cases, they are written documents, although even where this is not the case the country can still be regarded as having a constitution. They are legally supreme, often difficult to amend and sometimes short-lived (Watts, 2003). A synopsis of the 1937 Irish Constitution will be provided while the remainder of this paper will explore the degree of power the

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