The exclusion of the Dáil courts and the Privy Council appeal from the creation of the courts of the Irish Free State, 1922–1924
Published in The Journal of Legal History, January 2025.
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Abstract
This article compares the attitude of the Irish government in power in the early 1920s towards two differing judicial institutions that were omitted from the Courts of Justice Act 1924. This pioneering legislation created the system of courts that largely persists in the modern Irish State. The first object of comparison concerns the attitude of the Irish government of this period towards the ‘Dáil courts’ that had been created by Irish nationalist authorities in 1920 in opposition to the official courts of the United Kingdom in Ireland. The second concerns governmental attitudes towards the appeal from the Irish courts to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the final appellate court for most of the British Commonwealth and Empire. This article argues that the sidelining of these differing institutions by this important legislation has more shared features than is immediately apparent. Both institutions were influenced by the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State. The Irish government accused both judicial institutions of incompetence and bias in interpreting Irish law. Their common marginalization by the Courts of Justice Act 1924 also reflects dual political challenges facing the Irish government in the early 1920s.