Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922
The Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1922 to enact in UK law the Constitution of the Irish Free State, and to ratify the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty formally.
Provisions
As originally enacted, the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 consisted of a preamble, five sections, and a schedule. The schedule was the text of the Constitution of the Irish Free State Act 1922, which had been passed in Ireland by the Third Dáil sitting as a constituent assembly and provisional parliament for the nascent Free State. This Irish Act itself had two schedules, the first being the actual text of the Constitution, and the second the text of the 1921 Treaty. The UK Act's preamble quotes section 2 of the Irish Act:;Section 1: declared the scheduled Constitution would come into effect upon a royal proclamation no later than 6 December 1922.
;Section 2: made transitory provisions regarding taxation liabilities.
;Section 3: empowered the Free State parliament to adopt legislation applied to other dominions of the British Empire.
;Section 4: was a "saver" clause asserting that the UK Parliament retained the power to pass laws for Ireland on the same basis as for other dominions.
;Section 5: assigned the short title and specified that the Anglo-Irish Treaty had been ratified.
Parliament had implicitly accepted the treaty by votes on the King's Speech in December 1921, and most of its provisions had been effected in March 1922 by the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922. However, neither of these events was held to have formally ratified the treaty. This was because Article 12 of the treaty accorded to Northern Ireland the right to secede from the new Free State and rejoin the United Kingdom, giving its parliament a month in which to decide. This so-called Ulster Month would begin as soon as the treaty had been ratified, and some felt that the opt-out should not be exercised until after the Free State had come into being. Section 5 of the Irish Free State Constitution Act therefore declared the Act to be the ratification of the treaty for the purposes of the Ulster Month.
Enactment
The Irish Act had been approved by the Irish constituent assembly on 25 October 1922. The bill for the UK Act was introduced by the Prime Minister Bonar Law into the Parliament of the United Kingdom in November 1922. The bill's third reading in the House of Commons was on 30 November.The New York Times reported on the passing of the Act on 5 December 1922 as follows:
The New York Times also reported that in Parliament a group of Communists singing "The Red Flag" caused a minor disturbance as the formalities relating to the Act's passage were underway.