The Irish Free State and the Treaty - The decision
of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council regarding the power of the Irish Free State Parliament to abolish the right of appeal from Free State Courts to the Privy Council may have consequences much more far-reaching than has been so far appreciated. The ruling was in favour of the Free State and it contained the pregnant sentence : " The simplest way of stating the situation was to say that the Statute of Westminster gave to the Irish Free State a power under which they could abrogate the treaty [the Anglo-Irish Treaty of . 1921) and that as a matter of law they had availed themselves of that power."
This, it will be observed, goes far beyond an admission of the right of the Free State to amend its own constitution. Its right to abrogate the treaty is specifically asserted, and though Lord Sankey in giving the judgement was careful to state that he and his colleagues expressed no opinion on " any contractual obligation under which, regard being had to the terms of the treaty, the Irish Free State lay," the question obviously arises whether the Free State may now be considered free to abrogate, for example, the clauses of the treaty giving the Imperial Government the use of certain Irish ports and harbours 'for naval purposes.
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