The President f Ireland
GERARD A. LEE Dublin
Election and Term of Office Similar to the policy adopted in the Weimar Constitution in Germany, and in the present Constitution of Portugal, the Presi- dent of Ireland is elected by direct vote of the people, the . elec- torate being the same- as at an election for members of Dail Eire- ann and the voting being by secret ballot and on the principle of proportional representation by means of the single transfer- able vote.' He holds office for seven years from the date on which he enters upon his office, unless during that time he dies, or .re- signs or is removed from office or becomes permanently incapac- itated, the incapacity to be established to the satisfaction of . the Supreme Court consisting of not less than five judges. Every citi- zen who has reached his thirty-fifth year is eligible for. office and a, previous or outgoing President is eligible for re-election once only. The Presidential Elections Act, 1937, provides the', machinery for the nomination of candidates. Former or retiring Presidents may become candidates on their own nomination, every stick nomination being made in writing on a nomination paper in. the specific form set out in the act.2 Every candidate for election, not a former or retiring President, must be nominated by not less than twenty members of the Oireachtas, the nomination, paper being signed by each of the twenty members making the nom- ination,' or, as an alternative method, the candidate may be nom- inated by the councils of not fewer than four administrative counties (including county boroughs) . The number of nomina- tions is deliberately kept in check by the provision in the C"ôn- stitution that no person and no council is entitled to sùbscribe to the nomination of more than one candidate in the same elec- tion. It has been enacted by a subsequent act that a commissioner ' Constitution, Art. 12 ; Presidential Elections Act, 1937, ss . 20-28. z Presidential Elections Act, 1937, s. 10. ' Presidential Elections Act, 1937, s. 8.
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appointed to supersede a county council shall not have the right to nominate a candidate for the office of President. No election takes place where only one candidate is nomin- ated for the office of President. The circumstances which led to the selection of the first President of Ireland were of a rather unexpected character. It was realized that the method of election set out in the Constitution would prove quite ineffectual as a means of raising the choice of President above party politics. A nation-wide contest of this sort was to be avoided at all costs. Consequently the unexpected happened. A conference took place between two members of the Government and two members of the Opposition Party. It was agreed that Dr. Douglas Hyde should be requested to accept nomination. He accepted and, since there was no other candidate, he was declared elected, unopposed, on May4th, 1938. His successor - President O'Kelly -was how- ever elected by direct vote of the people in 1945. During the Constitution debate in the Dail, arguments were advanced in favour of the method of direct election of the Presi- dent by the whole people. The head of the government put the case briefly: "Nobody would propose getting the whole people to elect a person unless it was proposed to give him substantial pow- ers and consequently if those powers are in any way to be exercis- ed in connection with legislation it is only right that a person who had got the authority definitely from the people for doing certain things should exercise it. . . . My own belief is that the powers in the legislative domain are the chief powers and the only powers the President has which would justify an election of him by the people. In exercising these powers he is acting on behalf of the people who have put him there for that special purpose. He is there to guard the people's rights and mainly to guard the Con- stitution." 4 Over against this argument in favour of direct election by the people may be placed another equally cogent one showing its fail- ings. The counter argument is similar to that advanced against popularly elected second chambers, namely, the danger of con- flict arising between rival authorities, each claiming to represent directly the wishes of the people : - "You have the seeds of con- flict sown by reason of the possibility of conflict between the President claiming a direct mandate from the people and the Government also claiming a direct mandate from the people."' The question of eligibility of the President for re-election was a Dail Debates, Vol. LXVII, Cols. 38 and 51. s Dail Debates, Vol. LXVII, Col. 1035.