ion of imprisonment of a young person convicted of murder-originally conferred on the Crown pursuant to s 103 of the Children’s Act 1908- was a judicial power which now vested in the courts rather than in the Executive.The search for the dividing line between judicial and executive functions has been pursued in relation to matters other than those ancillaries to the trial of offences. In a series of cases dealing with the process of revising the Constitution, the courts have ruled that they have no jurisdiction to grant injunctions preventing the executive from holding a referendum without having previously fully explained its effect or from spending public money and campaigning exclusively in favour of a proposed constitutional amendment. However, if the procedures embraced by the government for alter the Constitution were not those predetermined in the Constitution itself, no doubt the courts could arbitrate. The conduct of foreign affairs is another area that is primarily assigned to the executive and not a matter for the courts. According to Fitzgerald J, Article 6 “established beyond question the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers of Government… Consequently… the courts have no power, either express or implied, to supervise or interfere with the exercise by the Government of its executive functions, unless the circumstances are such as to amount to a clear disregard by the Government of the powers and duties conferred upon it by the Constitution.”Article 28.2 exercises by or on the authority of the Government the executive power; the Government however is subject to the Dail, being dependent on its support and so on part of the legislature. Both the Government in the strict constitutional sense, and all of its members, and every part of the administration over which government powers in the wider sense are diffused, are subject to the intervention of the courts, except for the...
