Sinn Fein yesterday lost a legal challenge in the High Court in Belfast for a fair share of committee posts on Belfast City Council. Mr Justice Kerr dismissed an application for judicial review brought by Sinn Fein councillor Mr Tom Hartley. He claimed that an alleged pact between the Ulster Unionist Party and the Alliance Party had resulted in Sinn Fein not getting the chairmanship or vice-chairmanship of 16 committees and 42 other bodies. Mr Hartley said this was unlawful and discriminatory as Sinn Fein was the joint largest party on the council with 13 seats, the same number as the UUP.
In his reserved judgement, Mr Justice Kerr said there was nothing in the council's standing orders which could be construed as imposing an obligation to allocate the posts of chairman and deputy chairman according to party strength. "I am satisfied the council is not required to ensure that the distribution of posts reflects the political balance on the council," said the judge.
He said Mr Hartley's counsel had accepted that members of different political parties were at liberty to defeat the candidature of a councillor from a party to whom both were opposed, but argued that this right could not be used to inhibit the full participation of a political opponent. "This argument amounts to the claim that members of the council, in electing the chairman and deputy chairman of committees, must compromise their voting freedom," he said. "I consider that such a restriction would require to be explicitly provided for either in legislation or standing orders."
Afterwards, Mr Hartley said: "In the absence of statutory safeguards, it is clear that in unionist-dominated councils, nationalists cannot expect full and fair participation, as exemplified in today's judgement. In the absence of legislative intervention, as the judge made clear, the courts will not intervene to protect the rights of the nationalist electorate."