Legal basis of enactment There were diverging views on whether the 1937 Constitution of Ireland was a revolutionary breach of legal continuity with the 1922 Constitution it replaced. There are two main arguments that it was: The method used conflicted with the method set down in the 1922 Constitution. The 1922 Constitution provided that constitutional amendments be enacted in the same manner as ordinary laws, i.e. as Acts of the Oireachtas. However, the 1937 Constitution was not an Act of the Oireachtas. Instead, it was "approved" by the Dáil and then submitted to the people in a plebscite and only deemed to have become law once voters had endorsed it. The second and related argument was that the 1937 Constitution purported to repeal the 1922 Constitution even though the 1922 Constitution did not explicitly grant the Oireachtas the power to do so. However the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had  ruled in Moore v. Attorney General of Ireland (1935) that following the Statute of Westminster (1931) it had gained the power to do so .
Legal basis of enactment There were diverging views on whether the 1937 Constitution of Ireland was a revolutionary breach of legal continuity with the 1922 Constitution it replaced. There are two main arguments that it was: The method used conflicted with the method set down in the 1922 Constitution. The 1922 Constitution provided that constitutional amendments be enacted in the same manner as ordinary laws, i.e. as Acts of the Oireachtas. However, the 1937 Constitution was not an Act of the Oireachtas. Instead, it was "approved" by the Dáil and then submitted to the people in a plebscite and only deemed to have become law once voters had endorsed it. The second and related argument was that the 1937 Constitution purported to repeal the 1922 Constitution even though the 1922 Constitution did not explicitly grant the Oireachtas the power to do so. However the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had previously ruled in Moore v. Attorney General of Ireland (1935) that following the Statute of Westminster (1931) the Irish Free State legislature had gained the unfettered power to pass legislation and thus amend the constitution in a manner repugnant to imperial acts, and it had successfully removed any right to petition the Privy Council .
A
previously
R
it
the Irish Free State legislature
R
power to do so
unfettered power to pass legislation and thus amend the constitution in a manner repugnant to imperial acts, and it had successfully removed any right to petition the Privy Council