Murphy v Stewart

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 19 December 1973
• Date: 19 December 1973
• Docket Number: [1971. No. 33 P.]
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

Murphy

and

Stewart

Cesser - Workman wishing to terminate membership of his union -Second trade union refusing to accept workman as member while his union objected to termination of his membership - Whether workman's constitutional rights infringed - Constitution of Ireland, 1937, Article 40, s. 6, sub-s. 1 (iii).

The rules of the defendant trade union, in contravention of statute, did not contain any provisions specifying the conditions for cesser of membership of that union. The plaintiff workman was a member of the defendant Union but he wanted to become a member of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Notwithstanding the objection of the defendant union, the plaintiff was accepted as a member by Irish Transport. The defendant union brought the matter before the disputes committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and that committee ruled that the action of Irish Transport was contrary to good trade-union practice, and recommended that the plaintiff be restored to membership of the defendant union; the plaintiff was so restored. Subsequently, Irish Transport again requested the defendant union to give its consent to the plaintiff terminating his membership of the defendant union. When that consent was refused, Irish Transport refused to accept the plaintiff's further application for membership of that union. The plaintiff brought an action in the High Court in which he sought an order declaring that the refusal of the defendant union to consent to the plaintiff becoming a member of Irish Transport was an infringement of the plaintiff's constitutional rights. Held, by Murnaghan J., in granting the order, 1, that the provisions of clause 47 (d) of the constitution...