The Sinn Fein MP Mr Martin McGuinness may go to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the legality of the oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. In the High Court in Belfast yesterday, Mr Justice Kerr ruled that the Mid-Ulster MP and chief negotiator at the peace talks was not entitled to leave to apply for judicial review.
Mr McGuinness, who was not in court, had sought to challenge a decision by the House of Commons speaker, Ms Betty Boothroyd, denying him and his party leader, Mr Gerry Adams MP the facilities of the house because they had not taken their seats. They refused to swear an oath of allegiance on the grounds that the requirement was in conflict with their republican beliefs.
The application for leave was heard last Wednesday when a lawyer for Mr McGuinness said a requirement under the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, to swear allegiance to the monarch or forfeit entitlement to sit in the House of Commons, was unconstitutional and unlawful. It was argued that the requirement was incompatible with Mr McGuinness's rights as an MP, including freedom of expression, and with the rights of his constituents.
In his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Kerr held that the speaker's ruling was protected by parliamentary privilege. He said Ms Boothroyd's announcement lay within the realm of the internal arrangements of the house and therefore was not subject to judicial review.
"The house is entitled to unfettered control of its own internal arrangments. I am satisfied that the court does not have the jurisdiction to receive a challenge and the application for leave to apply for judicial review must therefore be dismissed."
Mr McGuinness's solicitor, Mr Michael Flanigan, said he would be considering the judgment along with Mr Michael Lavery QC. "If this decision is to be regarded as the applicant having exhausted his domestic remedies, it would enable him to go directly to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg," he said.
The alternative is to renew the leave application before three judges in the Court of Appeal. Notice of the renewal would have to be lodged before next Friday.
Ms Dodie McGuinness, Sinn Fein's director of elections, said later the court decision would be appealed, as far as Europe if necessary. "We will be pursuing this case to higher courts, all the way to Europe if needs be," she said. She claimed the speaker's decision to deny House of Commons facilities to Sinn Fein was "arbitrary, anti-democratic and discriminatory".