Action to protect democracy

IN December this column was critical of the decision of the Irish branch of Amnesty not to obey a Standards in Public Office ruling that it return a donation of €137,000 from the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations.

The issue was its campaign to increase support for a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. As we can’t have a democracy where organisations decide which laws they will obey, my view was Amnesty had no choice but to challenge the decision. This week they sought to quash the Sipo ruling, claiming it acted in error of law, in excess of its jurisdiction; misdirected itself on the interpretation of the electoral act on which it based its decision and failed to give adequate reasons for its decision.

Amnesty is right to bring a case as Sipo, on occasion has voiced concerns about vagueness of some of the language in the electoral Acts. As the abortion referendum looms, the spectre of overseas cash impacting on our democracy will raise its head again. It’s time the courts cleared this up and for the Oireachtas to revisit the Acts to ensure our politics is clean.