Gerald Fitzgibbon (8 October 1866 – 6 December 1942) was an Irish judge who served as a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1924 to 1938. He also served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin University constituency from 1921 to 1923.[1]
Kennedy soon came to regret his decision to recommend Fitzgibbon for appointment to the bench. Kennedy's diary records the increasing tension between the two men. Although Fitzgibbon was a Protestant Unionist, his friends insisted that he was by no means opposed to the new regime[7] and indeed if he had been, he would hardly have accepted high office in it. However, he seems to have become deeply disillusioned with the increasingly Roman CatholicIrish Free State, and by 1929, he and Chief Justice Kennedy are said to have regarded each other with deep suspicion.[7]
The tension came to a head in 1935, when Fitzgibbon was in the majority in State (Ryan) v Lennon; over Kennedy's strong dissenting judgment, he found that the Constitution of the Irish Free State contained provisions for its own amendment which allowed for the suspension of the most basic human rights.[8]
In Re Westby[9] in 1934, on the straightforward question of whether a Protestant ward of court should or should not be educated at an English public school, Chief Justice Kennedy's decision that the boy should be educated in Ireland was overruled by the Supreme Court of the Irish Free State, presided over by Fitzgibbon. Kennedy regarded Fitzgibbon's judgment as a personal attack on him.
Later years on the Supreme Court
He took some interest in the enactment of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland and made some suggestions on the procedure for referring a Bill to the Supreme Court under Article 26 by the President of Ireland as a reserve power.
Despite his obvious unhappiness in his professional life, he remained on the Supreme Court of Ireland until he reached retirement age in 1938; Chief Justice Kennedy believed that his somewhat unsatisfactory pension arrangements made Fitzgibbon cling to an office he had come to despise. Hogan points out that in this regard at least Fitzgibbon had good reason to be bitter with his treatment by the Government, because he was required on age grounds to retire 9 months before he qualified for the full amount, he seems to have received a pension equivalent to only 42% of his salary.[10]
