IN the summer of 1787, a group of 55 men gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia for a convention that was to produce what is widely regarded as the first modern constitution.
The document has since become the cornerstone of American society and democracy. And while it has served as a template for other constitutions, it is by no means flawless.
The original document did not have articles specifying fundamental liberties that might never be abridged or infringed by government. Even as eminent a politician as James Madison had argued in Philadelphia that any such articles were unnecessary.
However, bowing to popular pressure, Madison drafted 12 amendments to the constitution. And in December 1791 ten of these were ratified.
These ten amendments have since come to be known collectively as the Bill of Rights.
The most famous is the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech and worship. The most controversial is the Second Amendment, which has contributed enormously to American gun culture.
Just the other day Amber Heard, Hollywood’s hot new star who will feature opposite Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary (based on Hunter S Thompson’s novel), expressed reservations about the Second Amendment. “As Americans, we’ve been told since we were babies that we have the right to own guns, but I think there needs to be reform because over 30,000 people in the US died from gunshot wounds last year alone.”
Perhaps if there had been a woman’s voice heard in 1787 the ‘right’ to bear arms might never have been sanctioned. That was the thing about Philadelphia – the 55 at the convention were all men. Fast forward 150 years to Dublin in 1937 and things haven’t changed on the gender front when it comes to law-making.
When Eamon de Valera decided to replace the 1922 Free State Constitution with a new document, he assembled a small group to do the pick-and-shovel work. Like Philadelphia, that group was also all male. “Women had no part in framing Bunreacht na hEireann,” wrote Dr Yvonne Scannell of TCD in an article on the 1937 constitution. “Not one woman took part in drafting it.”
That was a serious omission. Little wonder that another Trinity College scholar, Ivana Bacik (now also a senator), is just the latest in a long line of women calling for a referendum to remove from the constitution what she described as “outdated references” to the role of women.
Anyway, it now looks as though she will get her wish, though that’s based on the assumption that the Labour Party will be in government after the next general election.
At its recent annual conference at NUI Galway, the party leader Eamon Gilmore pledged that, in government, Labour would set up a special convention charged with drawing up a new constitution for the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.
The plan includes a provision to appoint ordinary citizens, chosen at random, to sit alongside elected representatives and other experts and specialists at the convention. And this time there will be no blind spot when it comes to gender.
“The present constitution – which has served us well – was written in the 1930s and, as we approach the anniversary of the 1916 Rising, I think it’s a good time for us to take an overall look at the type of constitutional arrangements we’ll need to have in the period ahead,” said Mr Gilmore.
This is a very welcome development. The Ireland of the 21st century is a very different place from the Ireland of the 1930s. I have been pressing for years for a new constitution. Now, the time is right.