The current Stormont Assembly survived narrowly yesterday after Appeal Court judges split two-one in dismissing an appeal by DUP deputy leader Mr Peter Robinson.
The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, upheld Mr Robinson's appeal against the dismissal of a judicial review challenging the elections of First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan and the Secretary of State's decision to delay the next election until May, 2003.
But Lord Justices Nicholson and McCollum dismissed the appeal.
However, it is not the end of the matter, as the court gave leave for an appeal to the House of Lords.
Mr Robinson said afterwards: "I am mindful of the unprecedented nature of the Lord Chief Justice being the dissenting judge in his own court.
"I feel far more comfortable going to the House of Lords with the LCJ's judgment tucked under my belt than David Trimble will with the judgment, soaked with political overtones, of the other two judges."
The crux of Mr Robinson's case before Mr Justice Kerr last December was that the election of the two Ministers was invalid because they had not been elected within the six weeks laid down in the Act and therefore the Secretary of State should have dissolved the Assembly and called an immediate election.
Dismissing that argument, the judge held that the case demanded latitude in the application of the time limit.
But that view was contradicted by the Lord Chief Justice who said: "It is a difficult and invidious task for judges to adjudicate upon matters which have a highly charged political content, where the exercise of political judgment is at the centre of decision-making.
"That task is, however, imposed upon us by law and we have to discharge our function in the manner required of a judicial tribunal, looking only to those matters which are properly within our purview.
"Those matters are concerned solely with the interpretation of the governing statute, and I have sought to construe its terms in such a way as to ascertain and give effect to the intention of parliament, eschewing all other considerations."
Lord Justice Nicholson said he was satisfied the trial judge had adopted the proper approach to the law and added: "I consider that one should not apply a narrow or literal construction to statutes of constitutional importance if it would not promote the main object of the legislature."
Lord Justice McCollum said the Act required no more than that an election should be held within six weeks and did not prohibit the holding of a further election whether within or outside the period "as occasions requires".