Twenty-Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2011 (Ireland)

The Twenty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which relaxes the previous prohibition on the reduction of the salaries of Irish judges. The Twenty-Ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Judges' Remuneration) Bill 2011 (No. 44 of 2011), having been passed by both houses of the Oireachtas, was put to a referendum on 27 October 2011. The referendum was passed, and the amendment the bill was signed into law as the Twenty-Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 2011 (Irish: An tAcht um an Naoú Leasú is Fiche ar an mBunreacht 2011).

The Constitution of Ireland, since its enactment in 1937, had contained a prohibition on reducing the pay of a judge during his or her term of office. This was intended to protect judicial independence, by preventing the government of Ireland from using the threat of a pay reduction to dissuade judges from exercising judicial review in a manner which the government might find inconvenient.

The Irish economy entered a severe recession in 2008, which was still ongoing in 2011, and caused the state's revenues to fall sharply. Among the budgetary responses taken in 2008–09 by the then government were the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009 (a levy on pension contributions made by public sector workers) and the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Act 2009 (a reduction in public sector pay).Paul Gallagher, the Attorney General, advised the government that this could not be applied to judges because of the constitutional prohibition. The government asked judges to pay the levy voluntarily, and 125 out of 147 did so.

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