Citizenship referendum will target innocent children if passed, warn lawyers

THE Government’s citizenship referendum is being carried out with undue haste and will create Constitutional ambiguities over the rights of children, a petition signed by 150 lawyers claimed yesterday.

Launching a Lawyers Against the Amendment campaign in Dublin yesterday, Trinity College Dublin Regius Professor of Law William Binchy said the referendum, if passed, would target innocent children by denying them citizenship and reducing their constitutional protection.

“It would introduce a new discrimination between children born in Ireland, which has not been part of our legal system at any time since Ireland achieved its independence,” he said.

According to Prof Binchy, the referendum would also make possible enactment of future legislation which could exclude citizenship from children born to parents of an unpopular nation, ethnic group or religion.

“This is not the direction in which our constitution should be heading. International human rights standards emphasise the best interests of children and the equal dignity of all human beings,” he said.

Trinity Reid Professor of criminal law and Labour European election candidate Ivana Bacik said no justifiable case had been made for the referendum.

“The Minister for Justice has been unable to explain why it is so urgent. The process by which the referendum has been called is deeply flawed.

“There has been no time for a fully informed debate on the proposal and now there are only three weeks to go,” she said.

Reacting to the criticism on behalf of the Government, Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan said the claims were outlandish and designed to confuse the public.

“Their claims are clearly designed to distract the public from the exploitation of our citizenship laws highlighted in the opinion of the Chen case which demonstrated how our law is being abused by persons who wish to circumvent immigration controls in other EU states,” she said.

A statement released yesterday from Justice Minister Michael McDowell denied the referendum was racist and said the Government would only bring Irish law into conformity with the rest of the EU.

“I apprehend that we are going to have a rash of Lawyers Against The Amendment, Doctors Against The Amendment and other ad hoc bodies conjured up to attempt to give a mouth-to-mouth breath of life into a cause which has atrophied and crumbled in the hands of the Politicians Against The Amendment who have fled the field in the aftermath of the Chen case,” he said.