The North's former First Minister, Mr David Trimble, is to appeal to the House of Lords after failing to overturn a ruling that his ban on Sinn FΘin ministers attending cross-Border meetings was illegal.
The Appeal Court in Belfast upheld an earlier judgment that Mr Trimble's ban on the North's Education Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, and the Health Minister, Ms Bairbre de Br·n, meeting their Southern counterparts was unlawful.
Mr Trimble took the action in an attempt to force the Provisional IRA to begin decommissioning. Lord Chief Justice Carswell agreed with the original ruling that putting paramilitary guns beyond use should not hinder other crucial strands of the Belfast Agreement.
But a spokesman for Mr Trimble said he had now instructed lawyers to apply to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland for leave to take the matter to the House of Lords.
Mr Trimble had refused to sign papers allowing Mr McGuinness and Ms de Br·n to attend North-South Ministerial Council meetings. Sinn FΘin dismissed Mr Trimble's plan to appeal to the House of Lords. Mr McGuinness said: "He can go wherever he likes. He is not going to succeed; the two judgements made against him are very clear.
"I hope David Trimble will reflect very, very carefully on this court decision. The whole world will hear this decision and the whole world will know that David Trimble is continuing to obstruct and prevent change. I hope that over the course of the weekend he has a road to Damascus change of heart." Mr McGuinness also called on the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, to step in and order that Sinn FΘin ministers must be nominated to ministerial council meetings.
He said Dr Reid should also make it clear he will not suspend the North's political institutions. The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, accused Mr Trimble of inconsistency. "The hypocrisy of David Trimble over Sinn FΘin/IRA's place in government is quite staggering," he said.
"The man who brought the leaders of armed terror in from the cold and placed them at the heart of government in Northern Ireland now seeks to lecture the Prime Minister about the true nature of the republican movement." Meanwhile, senior British and Irish government officials met in Belfast yesterday to discuss the political options if Mr Trimble decides to pull all his ministers from the North's Executive next week.