Law Lords reject DUP Stormont appeal

The UK's highest court of appeal has dismissed a bid by the anti-agreement DUP to declare the elections of the first and deputy first minister last November as unlawful.

In a split vote the Law Lords ruled by a 3-2 majority that Dr John Reid had acted lawfully when extending the six-week deadline for the elections of the first and deputy first minister on November 6.

The DUP launched their legal action after David Trimble resigned his post in August and, in the political wrangling that followed, saw his re-election secured only after the Secretary of State extended the deadline period.

The DUP argued that this decision ran contrary to a clause in the Good Friday Agreement which provides that new elections should be called in the event that the office of first minister is left vacant for over six-weeks. In the DUP's view, new assembly elections should have been called.

One of the three Law Lords who rejected the appeal, Lord Bingham, said that the agreement was not intended to override the will of the assembly and the Secretary of State.

"I can see no reason why, in introducing that time limit, it should have been intended to constrain the assembly's power to elect otherwise than by subjecting it to the secretary of state's power and duty to intervene," he said.

Lord Hobhouse, who voted for the DUP's appeal, said: "The secretary of state's refusal to perform the duty to hold an extraordinary assembly election must be political in character since it is bound to be seen to favour one political party of another.

"It thus fails to reflect the inclusive aspirations of the Belfast agreement for the democratic institutions of Northern Ireland."

This was the DUP's third legal challenge in a bid to remove the first and deputy first minister from office – which started at Belfast High Court last November. However, the party were saying earlier today that they did not expect the Law Lords to rule on their favour.

East Belfast MP Peter Robinson said: "I think if the Law Lords had any intention of siding with us, we would have got this ruling before the recess to enable the government to push through emergency legislation to prop up Stormont.

"The government has exerted a lot of political pressure on the Lords to uphold the election of David Trimble and Mark Durkan as first and deputy first ministers."

A spokesman for the office of the First and Deputy First Minister were "always confident that the House of Lords would come to that conclusion".

(GMcG)