Sinn Féin Funds case

This article is about the 1940s case. For the 1920s cases, see Dáil funds case.

The Sinn Féin Funds case[1] (Buckley and Others v. the Attorney-General and Another) was a 1942–48 Irish court case in which the Sinn Féin party claimed ownership of funds deposited with the High Court in 1924 which had belonged to the Sinn Féin party before 1923. The Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, which attempted to halt the court case and assign the funds to Bord Cistí Sinn Féin, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in an important judgement on separation of powers and private property rights. The original action was subsequently decided against Sinn Féin, on the basis that the pre-1923 party was separate from the 1940s party. Most of the disputed funds were consumed by legal costs.

The funds

Sinn Féin was established in 1905 as an Irish nationalist political party. In 1917, it was reconstituted under leader Éamon de Valera with a more radical separatist agenda, incorporating members and ideas from the Irish Volunteers who had organised the 1916 Easter Rising. It set about raising funds for its campaign of civil disobedience, which by 1919 escalated into the Anglo-Irish War when Sinn Féin proclaimed an Irish Republic independent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Sinn Féin funds were for party-political purposes and were smaller than and separate from the Dáil funds, which the Republic treated as government bonds to fund its administration and its army, the IRA. The party's Central Fund was held in bank accounts controlled by its honorary treasurers, Eamonn Duggan and Jennie Wyse Power.[2] The war ended with a truce in July 1921, followed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December, which provided for an Irish Free State. Sinn Féin split over the terms of the treaty, leading to the Irish Civil War of 1922–23, won by the supporters of the Free State over those who sought to maintain the Irish Republic.

On either 9 December 1921 or 17 January 1922,[3] the Sinn Féin standing committee resolved to make de Valera the party's sole trustee.[4] At the February 1922 Ard Fheis, the officer board became the standing committee.[4] The party was in abeyance from the general election in June 1922, when it rubber-stamped the nomination of a combined slate of pro- and anti-treaty candidates in a failed attempt to stop the descent into civil war.[4] In October 1922, after the Civil War had started, de Valera, who was anti-Treaty, wrote asking Duggan and Wyse Power, who were pro-Treaty, to transfer the funds to him in conformance to the old standing committee's resolution.[4] They refused to comply unless the new officer board/standing committee ordered them to do so.[4] The officer board/standing committee met on 26 October 1922; pro-Treaty members had an eight–five majority and the board voted not to allow further expenditure without its approval.[4] It never met again.[4]

After the 1923 ceasefire, supporters of the Free State Executive Council founded the Cumann na nGaedheal party and anti-Treaty activists reconstituted Sinn Féin. In February 1924 Duggan and Wyse Power lodged the balance of the Central Fund in a trust in the High Court under the provisions of the Trustee Act, 1893;[2][4] the balance was £8,663 12s. 2d., from which administrative costs were deducted.[2]

1942–46 proceedings

The Sinn Féin party lost support when Fianna Fáil was founded in 1926 by its most prominent members, including de Valera; it stopped contesting elections after September 1927. In 1938 it ceded symbolic control of the notionally still-extant Irish Republic to the IRA Army Council.

When Eamonn Duggan died in 1936, Jennie Wyse Power became sole trustee of the Sinn Féin funds.[2][5] Wyse Power died in 1941, and her son, Charles Stewart Power, a judge, inherited the position of trustee.[5] He suggested to Éamon de Valera, then Taoiseach, that the money could be used to support needy veterans of the revolutionary period.[5] While de Valera began planning enabling legislation to effect this, Power approached surviving members of the pre-Treaty standing committee of Sinn Féin for their consent, and all but one agreed.[5][6]

The leaders of the contemporary Sinn Féin became aware of the proposals,[5][6] and on 19 January 1942, brought a High Court action by originating plenary summons against Power and the Attorney General seeking a declaration that the funds were the property of the party, and the payment of the funds to its honorary treasurers.[6][7] By this time the funds amounted to £18,200 19s. 6d., invested in Irish Free State 4% Conversion Loan, 1950–70 (£13,041 1s. 5d.), Irish Free State Second National Loan (£4,927 14s. 8d.), and cash (£616 3s. 9d.).[7]

The proceedings were formally called Margaret Buckley, Séamus Mitchell, Séamus O'Neill, Padraig Power, Mairéad McElroy, Séamus Russell, Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire, Seán Poole, Joseph H. Fowler and Seán Ua Ceallaigh, on behalf of themselves and all other Members of the Sinn Féin Organisation established in the year, 1905, and reconstituted in the year, 1917 Plaintiffs v. The Attorney General of Éire and Charles Stewart Power Defendants.[8]

There was no further action from the plaintiffs for several years and the respondents applied to have the case dismissed.[6] On 21 November 1945 the High Court gave Sinn Féin a month to proceed and notice of trial was issued on 19 December 1945.[6] In October 1946 the hearing was fixed for 26 November.[6] On 11 November, the plaintiffs sought an order that their original solicitor release to their new solicitor papers which he was holding in lien for unpaid fees; the High Court refused and the case was adjourned pending an appeal of this decision to the Supreme Court.[6]

Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947

The Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947 was an act of the Oireachtas introduced in the 12th Dáil by the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, on 11 March 1947.[5] His justification was that "unless there is action taken by the Legislature, these funds will be frittered away in legal costs".[5] The Act provided for a seven-person board, Bord Cistí Sinn Féin,[9] with a chairman nominated by the Chief Justice and the others by the Government.[10] The act directed the High Court to pay the Sinn Féin funds to the board;[11] it could also accept donations from others.[12] The board could invest its funds in the same manner as Post Office savings,[13] and could make payments to needy veterans of Irish republican paramilitary groups in 1916–21.[14] It would be dissolved when its funds were exhausted.[15] Section 10 of the act purported to stay the proceedings started in 1942, and to require the High Court to dismiss the action upon an ex-parte application from the Attorney General.

The act was signed into law on 27 May 1947. On 10 June 1947, Aindrias Ó Caoimh, junior counsel for the Attorney General, made an ex-parte application under Section 10 of the act to dismiss the case.[16] George Gavan Duffy, the President of the High Court, rejected the application on the basis that Section 10 of the act violated the Constitution of Ireland, on two grounds: it violated the separation of powers, in that the legislature was attempting to prevent the judiciary hearing a case as provided under Articles 34 to 37 of the Constitution;[17] and it violated Article 43's protection of private property, by requisitioning the funds without sufficient cause.[18] On 23 June, the Attorney General's appeal was heard in the Supreme Court, before justices James Murnaghan, James Geoghegan, John O'Byrne, William Black and Martin Maguire, with senior counsel John A. Costello and Seán MacBride appearing for Sinn Féin.[19] Its judgment, delivered by O'Byrne on 31 July 1947, upheld both grounds of the High Court ruling.[1][20]

1948 proceedings

After the Sinn Féin Funds Act had been found unconstitutional, the original 1942 case recommenced. It was adjourned after the February 1948 general election to allow Sinn Féin to appoint new counsel, because Costello and MacBride were now ministers in the new coalition government.[21] It was heard in the High Court between 18 March 1948 and 19 November 1948,[22] with de Valera giving evidence on 20 April on Sinn Féin's structure while he was its leader.[23] The ruling, by T. C. Kingsmill Moore on 26 October 1948,[24] was against Sinn Féin, on the basis that the organisation as reconstituted in 1923 was "not in any legal sense a continuation" of the party that had "melted away" in 1922, to which the funds had belonged.[21][25] The funds remained in the High Court while legal costs were paid from them.[21] By 22 February 1950 the value of the funds was £19,791 5s. 10d. and legal costs of £5,333 6s. 8d had already been paid.[22] A Dáil question on 19 April 1951 revealed that the value was £1,704 8s. 1d., with TDs decrying the amount paid to lawyers.[26] The Irish Times reported in 1959 that the account balance was still lying unclaimed.[27]

References

Sources

Primary sources
Secondary sources

Citations

  1. 1 2 Forde, Michael; Leonard, David (2013). "8.21 Separation of Powers". Constitutional Law of Ireland. A&C Black. p. 209. ISBN 9781847667380. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 [1950] 1 I.R. 68
  3. ↑ "50 Years Ago: The Sinn Féin Funds case". Saoirse – Irish Freedom. 6 October 1998. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Laffan 1999, p.417
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Sinn Féin Funds Bill, 1947—First Stage.". Dáil Éireann debates. Oireachtas. 11 March 1947. Vol.104 No.13 p.40 cc.1752–57. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Sinn Féin Funds Bill, 1947—Second Stage.". Dáil Éireann debates. 19 March 1947. Vol.104 No.17 p.28 cc.2371–72. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  7. 1 2 [1950] 1 I.R. 77
  8. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. 67
  9. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, sec.2
  10. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, secs.3–5
  11. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, secs.11–12
  12. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, sec.14
  13. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, sec.9
  14. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, sec.13
  15. ↑ Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, sec.16
  16. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. 69
  17. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. pp.70,84
  18. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. 83
  19. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. pp.71,74
  20. ↑ [1950] 1 I.R. 67–68
  21. 1 2 3 McCullagh, David (2011-09-09). The Reluctant Taoiseach: A Biography of John A. Costello. Gill & Macmillan. p. 171. ISBN 9780717151639. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  22. 1 2 "Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. – Sinn Féin Funds.". Dáil Éireann debates. Oireachtas. 22 February 1950. Vol.119 No.4 p.21 cc.473–4. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  23. ↑ Murray, Patrick (Winter 1995). "Éamon de Valéra's Indispensable Secretary: Kathleen O'Connell, 1888–1956". Éire-Ireland. Irish American Cultural Institute. 30 (4): 111–133: 129, n.70.
  24. ↑ Laffan 1999 p.170, fn.3
  25. ↑ McDowell, Michael (14 January 2006). "Sinn Fein's bogus 100 year history". Irish Independent. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  26. ↑ "Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. – Sinn Féin Fund.". Dáil Éireann debates. 19 April 1951. Vol.125 No.8 p.8 cc.1124–6. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  27. ↑ "Nobody's Money". The Irish Times. 30 May 1959. p. 7.

Further reading

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