Poynings' Law (on Certification Of Acts)
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Poynings' Law or the Statute of Drogheda ( 10 Hen. 7. c. 4 (I) 'The Irish Statutes'' numberingor 10 Hen. 7. c. 9 (I) 'Analecta Hibernica'' numbering later titled "An Act that no Parliament be holden in this Land until the Acts be certified into England") was a 1494 Act of the
Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland () was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the Irish Hou ...
which provided that the parliament could not meet until its proposed legislation had been approved both by Ireland's Lord Deputy and Privy Council and by England's
monarch A monarch () is a head of stateWebster's II New College Dictionary. "Monarch". Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest ...
(the
Lord of Ireland The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of Kingdom of England, England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Normans in Ireland, Anglo ...
) and Privy Council. It was a major grievance in 18th-century Ireland, was amended by the Constitution of 1782, rendered moot by the
Acts of Union 1800 The Acts of Union 1800 were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of G ...
, and repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1878 ( 41 & 42 Vict. c. 57).


Background

Poynings' Parliament was called by Sir
Edward Poynings Sir Edward Poynings Knight of the Garter, KG (1459 – 22 October 1521) was an English soldier, administrator and diplomat, and Lord Deputy of Ireland under King Henry VII of England. Early life Edward Poynings was the only son of Robert Poyni ...
in his capacity as Lord Deputy of Ireland, appointed by King
Henry VII of England Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509), also known as Henry Tudor, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henr ...
in his capacity as
Lord of Ireland The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of Kingdom of England, England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Normans in Ireland, Anglo ...
. Coming in the aftermath of the divisive
Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...
, Poynings' intention was to make Ireland once again obedient to the English monarchy. Assembling the
Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland () was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the Irish Hou ...
on 1 December 1494, he declared that it was thereafter to be placed under the authority of the
Parliament of England The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the Great Council of England, great council of Lords Spi ...
. This marked the beginning of Tudor direct rule in Ireland, although Henry VII was still forced to rely on
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
nobles (such as
Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare (born – ), known variously as "Garret the Great" (Gearóid Mór) or "The Great Earl" (An tIarla Mór), was Ireland's premier peer. He served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1477 to 1494, and from 1496 u ...
, despite his support for Lambert Simnel) as his deputies in Ireland through the intervening years. Poynings' Law was a major rallying point for later groups seeking self-government for Ireland, particularly the Confederate Catholics in the 1640s and Henry Grattan's Patriot Party in the late 18th century, who consistently sought a repeal of Poynings' Law. The Act remained in place until the Constitution of 1782 gave the Irish parliament legislative independence.


Function and operation

The working of Poynings' Law took place in several steps. The first step was for the lieutenant governor and the Irish council (or Irish executive) to decide that a parliament was needed, usually for the purpose of raising funds. At this point, the council and lieutenant would write drafts of legislation to be proposed to the king and his council. After this had been completed, the lieutenant and council, according to the act, were required to certify the request for parliament "under the great seal of that land reland,. and then forward it to England for approval. Once the request arrived in England, it was reviewed by the King and his council, and a formal licence, approving the request for parliament and the draft bills were returned to Ireland. Once the licence was received in Ireland, the governor would summon parliament, and the bills passed. "Government" was not representative as in the modern sense and there was no sustained opposition. Parliament's consent was necessary for some purposes, and it frequently offered advice, but the decisions were made by the English and Irish councils. This is an important fact to consider when examining exactly who the law was aimed to suppress. As the point above demonstrates, parliament was virtually a rubber stamp, and it was the Irish executive who made the actual decisions in proposing policy. The two important aspects of the procedure presented by Poynings' Law are transmission and certification. Both of these requirements placed limits on various parties within the law-making process in Ireland. The combination of these processes created a situation where bills could be sent, along with the request for parliament, and the king could amend and remove such bills as he wished, however, he could not add new bills himself. This is a result of the certification process which requires the submission to be made by the Irish council "under the great seal of that land reland. The original intention of the certification process was to remove the capacity of initiating legislation from the parliament, and place it with the Irish council and governor. But as a result of the way it was framed in the act, it also removed that capacity from the English parliament and administration as well: legislation could only be submitted for approval by the Irish executive. Furthermore, the two processes made it impossible for the Irish to add more bills or amendments to a request after the initial licence request had been granted. This meant that any additional bills or amendments that they wished to pass in parliament would have to be re-sent along with an entirely new request for parliament. Clearly, this created severe inefficiencies in the legislative process, and thus gave the executive in Ireland as well as the crown an interest in relaxing procedure. As early as 1496 "the rigid procedure laid down by Poynings' Law was not being adhered to", and additional bills were commonly sent to England after the original request and were returned to Ireland before the meeting of a new parliament. The example from 1496 was the separate request for parliamentary licence and sending of bills in the reappointment of the Earl of Kildare. At this time, because the rigid procedure of Poynings' Law was not in the interest of any of the parties involved, especially the Crown and Irish executive, Quinn argues that "no hesitation was felt about transmitting additional bills" after the licence had been granted.


Changes after 1692

After the Revolution of 1688 and the ensuing Williamite War, an important development in the Poynings' Law procedure took place in the 1692 parliament as some members of the
Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...
sought to establish for themselves a more central role in the process of drafting legislature. On 27 October 1692, the House of Commons passed two notable resolutions. The first, "that it was, and is, the undoubted right of the commons… to prepare and resolve the ways and means of raising money" and the second, "that it was, and is, the sole and undoubted right of the commons to prepare heads of bills for raising money". Opposition to the executive was then expressed as the Commons used its veto power under Poynings' Law to reject "virtually two-thirds of the meticulously prepared government bills". Political deadlock ensued and parliament was prorogued. Although judicial opinion in both Ireland and England served to vindicate the position of the
Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...
and the English Government in the matter, it became clear that a compromise solution must be reached before parliament could be called again. From mid-1694, negotiations to this end began to bear fruit. The Irish parliament would pass one government money bill relating to excise at the beginning of the session in recognition of the
royal prerogative The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, Privilege (law), privilege, and immunity recognised in common law (and sometimes in Civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy) as belonging to the monarch, so ...
. The parliament would now appoint a committee to decide upon the "ways and means" of raising supply and draw up the "heads of bills" of any related legislation. Government support of penal legislation against Catholics also helped placate the claims of the 'sole right' advocates. The compromise solution was put into effect in the 1695 parliament and all fourteen government bills presented in the first session were passed by both houses. Now the Irish House of Commons had major input into the substance, or 'heads', of supply bills that would then be transmitted to the English Privy Council for approval, amendment or rejection under the Poynings' Law procedure. This set the precedent for the parliaments of the eighteenth century.


Heads of bills

Whereas an independent legislature can amend a bill between the time of its introduction and the time it is passed, this was not possible for the Parliament of Ireland, as only the bill originally introduced would be in compliance with the requirement under Poynings' Law to have been pre-approved by the privy councils. As a consequence, a
legal fiction A legal fiction is a construct used in the law where a thing is taken to be true, which is not in fact true, in order to achieve an outcome. Legal fictions can be employed by the courts or found in legislation. Legal fictions are different from ...
developed after the Revolution of 1688 whereby the Irish parliament introduced and debated the 'heads' of a bill before transmitting the heads to the Irish Privy Council. In theory, the 'heads' of a bill are simply its broad outline or general scheme; in practice, they were identical in form to a final bill, and processed identically, except that the enacting clause "be it enacted" was replaced with "we pray that it may be enacted". On occasion, if either privy council amended a bill, the Irish parliament would symbolically assert its authority by rejecting the amended bill and resubmitting heads of a new bill identical to the rejected one.


Amendment and repeal

The Declaratory Act 1719 declared the right of the
Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a ...
to make laws for
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
and overrule judgments of the
Irish House of Lords The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until the end of 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland. It was modelled on the House of Lords of Englan ...
. The Declaratory Act and Poynings' Law were two major grievances of the
Irish Patriot Party The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of British Whig Party, Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that ...
that were addressed by the Constitution of 1782. One element of the Constitution was Barry Yelverton's Act,21 & 22 Geo. 3. c. 47 an implied amendment of Poynings' Law which removed the Irish Privy Council altogether from the legislative process and reduced the British Privy Council's power to one of veto rather than amendment. The
Acts of Union 1800 The Acts of Union 1800 were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland (previously in personal union) to create the United Kingdom of G ...
rendered most of the Constitution of 1782 and Poynings' Law moot. Poynings' Law was formally repealed as obsolete by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1878.


Notes


References


Sources

;Primary: * (Where two chapters are given, the first is the printed number, the second the enrolled number.) *
10 Hen. 7. c. 4 (c. 9)
(p. 44) *
10 Hen. 7. c. 22 (c. 39)
(pp. 56–57) *
28 Hen. 8. c. 4
(pp. 89–90) *
28 Hen. 8. c. 20 (c. 31)
(pp. 157–159) *
3 & 4 Ph. & M. c.4 (c. 11)
(pp. 246–248) *
11 Eliz. 1 Sess. 3 c. 8 (c. 18)
(pp. 346–347) *
Irish Statute Book The Irish Statute Book, also known as the electronic Irish Statute Book (eISB), is a database produced by the Office of the Attorney General of Ireland. It contains copies of Acts of the Oireachtas and statutory instruments.
*
Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act, 1878
;Secondary: *. *. *. *. * *. *. * *. * *


External links


Poynings' Law on the UK Parliament website
{{Irish constitutions Irish constitutional law Acts of the Parliament of Ireland 1494 Repealed acts of the Parliament of Ireland