Madam, - On the basis of the report in your edition of April 15th of a paper written by Mr Michael McDowell, it would appear that the Minister for Justice opposes the concept of judicially enforceable socio-economic rights on two grounds.
First, he challenges the view that socio-economic rights can be compared to civil and political rights on the ground that the exercise of the former involves resource constraints.
However, while it is true that the exercise of many civil and political rights do not have resource implications, that is not always the case. If the State wishes to vindicate effectively the right to liberty, it has to fund the criminal court system to ensure that innocent people are not wrongly convicted of criminal charges. Even the exercise of the right to vote requires the State to fund the collection and counting of votes. Thus one cannot rely on the fact that the exercise of a right may involve public expenditure as a basis for excluding such a right from the remit of the courts.
Mr McDowell's second, and perhaps more substantial, objection is that social issues are properly the concern of politics rather than the courts. I would certainly agree that it is preferable, for various reasons, that such issues be resolved by the political system rather than by the courts. However in my opinion, the political system has a regrettable tendency to ignore the socio-economic interests of disadvantaged groups, probably because such groups are insignificant electorally. Proceeding from that premise, I suggest that judicial intervention performs a useful role in requiring the political system to engage with the needs of these groups.
This role is very limited, for a judicial pronouncement of socio-economic rights cannot pre-empt a subsequent response by the Oireachtas or executive to the issue in hand, even where that response nullifies the impact of the judicial ruling. Thus, in the end, the protection of socio-economic rights will always be a matter for the political system.
However, as a means of requiring the political system to take seriously the goal of social inclusion and of informing any debate on this issue, the concept of judicially enforceable socio-economic rights is, pace the Minister, both necessary and desirable. - Yours, etc.,
GERRY WHYTE, Law School, Trinity College, Dublin 2.