The Irish have given a slap in the face to their Government and in the process have given it to themselves.
A majority of voters rejected, in the referendum held this Friday, the two constitutional reforms that sought to eliminate references in the text to the role of “the woman in the house” and a narrow definition of the family that only contemplated marriage.
Participation has been very low.
It has barely reached 45%, a reflection of the confusion and apathy with which citizens have followed this debate.
In the first of the two proposed reforms whose ballots have been counted, that of the family, the 'no' has had overwhelming support, of more than 67.69%, compared to 32.31% support for the 'yes' .
The result of the second proposal, which eliminated the reference to the “woman at home,” has been even worse.
73.09% of Irish people have rejected the change.
Only 26.07% have supported it.
When you lose a poll “so resoundingly and by such a wide margin” the conclusion is that many people “did not understand what was at stake, and I am clearly one of them,” admitted the Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, when the first counts They anticipated an unmitigated defeat for the Government.
On March 8, 2023, the Citizens' Assembly, a collegiate and constituent body, made up of representatives of political parties and citizens chosen at random, which attends and offers recommendations on possible changes or additions to the Constitution, proposed to finally introduce the idea of gender equality in the text.
The Constitution of the Republic, approved in mid-1937 and amended dozens of times, maintains to this day the embers of an intransigent Catholicism, although the country has already moved away from its past with social advances such as abortion, divorce or marriage. homosexual.
The Government got to work, with the intention of holding a referendum a year later, and making it coincide again with International Women's Day.
But the misgivings with which the different traditional nationalist parties - Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, three branches of the same tree, slightly more to the right or left - viewed each other weakened the debate from the first minute.
The Government did not carry out the necessary explanatory campaign;
the legal doubts and confusion generated by the proposals misled voters;
The changes in the initial text, to temper the language, ended up giving a stale and conservative tone to what was intended to be a progressive decision.
The two proposed constitutional reforms affected three sections of a specific article.
The so-called “care
amendment
”, undoubtedly the most offensive for feminist groups, sought to change the current text to eliminate the reference to the exclusive role of women at home, as the fundamental provider of that care. .
This is the original text:
“Article 41.2.1º
Specifically, the State recognizes that, by focusing her life within the home, women give the State support without which the common good could not be achieved.
Article 41.2.2º
The State will work, in this way, to ensure that mothers are not forced by economic necessity to have to work, to the detriment of their obligations at home.
The new proposed text, now rejected, read as follows:
“Article 42B
The State recognizes that the provision of assistance by members of a family to other members of that same family, due to the bond that exists between them, offers Society support without which the common good could not be achieved.
In this way, [the State] will endeavor to support the provision of that assistance.”
The modification continued to present care for dependents as support to the State and a responsibility of family members, and not as a social benefit payable to the Government.
The accommodation to the new social reality of Ireland that the constitutional reform proposal seeks also requires the construction of a new legal definition of family that is not limited to that of mere marriage.
To give an idea of the anachronism of the Magna Carta, it is enough to remember that Ireland approved homosexual marriage in 2015.
The so-called “family amendment”
sought
to expand that concept.
The current text says:
Article 41.1
The State recognizes the Family as the primary and fundamental group unit of Society, and as a moral institution that has inalienable and imprescriptible rights, superior to and prior to any norm of positive law.
The proposed text modified a few words from the previous one, but thus significantly changed its spirit.
Still, he has not convinced the Irish, who have rejected him.
This was the proposed proposal:
Article 41.1
The State recognizes the Family,
whether based on marriage or another lasting relationship
, as the primary and fundamental group unit of Society, and as a moral institution that has inalienable and imprescriptible rights, superior and prior to any rule of law. positive.
The notion of a lasting relationship, as ambiguous as it is interpretable, allowed the detractors of the reform to sow the debate of legal doubts about the rights acquired, for example, by a casual partner, to the detriment of the lifelong partner.
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