Court date set for appeal over Irish language signage

TUV member says Belfast City Council’s handling of voting procedures was wrong

A TUV member has secured a hearing date for an appeal against her failed legal action over Belfast City Council procedures on a draft Irish language policy.

Ann McClure claims a judge wrongly determined that the local authority’s handling of voting rules were not unlawful.

Her legal team attended the Court of Appeal today for the preliminary stage in the bid to have the ruling on the call-in scheme set aside.

Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan agreed to set aside two days in November for the main hearing.

Ms McClure’s spokesperson, loyalist campaigner Jamie Bryson, said later: “We welcome that the challenge is now listed in this important case.

“Belfast City Council has also confirmed there will be no implementation of their Irish language policy in the meantime.”

Proceedings centre on a scheme for reconsidering two separate controversial decisions: one related to the proposed language strategy, and the second on flying the Palestinian flag at City Hall.

Lawyers for Ms McClure argued that the Council’s voting procedures thwarted safeguards aimed at protecting minority views.

Approved in October last year, the draft language policy aims to promote the use of Irish in public life, with bilingual signage and logos to appear on council facilities, signage and uniforms.

A call-in mechanism was triggered to scrutinise the legitimacy of the decision amid objections from unionist representatives.

Under the procedure a 15% minority of councillors can request a reconsideration which involves seeking legal opinion on any possible adverse community impact.

If those concerns are assessed as being valid, an 80% super majority may be required in a call-in for the original motion to be voted in again.

Ms McClure claimed the Council had wrongly interpreted relevant sections of the Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act 2014.

A new filter was wrongly created which handed a veto to a simple majority of the elected representatives, her lawyers contended.

In April, however, a High Court judge dismissed that part of the challenge.

He held that the standing orders under scrutiny were not ultra vires, or outside the legal powers of the Act.

Judicial review proceedings widened out into a systemic challenge after the Council backed a Sinn Fein proposal to fly the Palestinian flag for one day at City Hall.

Unionists again objected and called in the original decision taken to mark Palestinian Solidarity Day.

Following a further vote the flag was eventually raised for a short period at the start of December.

Councillors had received legal opinion that it was not likely to have a disproportionate impact on the Jewish community.

Mr Justice McLaughlin found that a statutory process for amending the standing orders was not properly completed.

He identified “procedural confusion” when the full Council decided on the adverse effects of flying the flag, assessing the route taken as “without adequate legal foundation and ultra vires”.

Ultimately, however, the judge said the same outcome would have been inevitable if standing orders were correctly applied rather than a simple majority vote.

Ms McClure is now appealing his ruling on the Irish language policy call-in, citing a number of grounds where she claims he got it wrong.

Listing the case for hearing on November 24 and 25, the Lady Chief Justice added: “It is helpful to have the position papers which have clarified the (legal) landscape.”