Two Catholic barristers who were stopped from becoming Queen's Counsel because they would not make a declaration to serve the queen were finally made QCs yesterday.
Mr Seamus Treacy and Mr Barry Macdonald were called to the Inner Bar of Northern Ireland by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Carswell, whom they had cited in a judicial review challenging the legality of the royalty declaration.
The High Court ceremony followed a ruling last May that the Lord Chancellor's insistence on the royalty declaration was unlawful.
As judges and other barristers queued up to congratulate the new QCs their relations and friends in the public gallery clapped.
Last December they were among a dozen barristers due to be made QCs but opted out of the ceremony after the Lord Chief Justice indicated he would only permit them to participate if they made the declaration to serve the queen.
Mr Treacy and Mr Macdonald claimed the declaration discriminated against them as nationalists, was an affront to their political sensibilities and denied them the legitimate expectation contained in the Belfast Agreement that their Irish citizenship would be recognised and respected.
The barristers' courtroom victory led to the Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine, announcing that the reference to the queen would be removed from the declaration for future ceremonies in Northern Ireland, although it is being retained in England and Wales.