FIVE men jailed for high-profile murders have been refused permission to re-open appeals against their convictions.
Senior judges also rejected an attempt by a woman found guilty of the manslaughter of a wedding guest in Derry to have her case re-examined.
All six have already mounted unsuccessful attempts to have their convictions quashed.
They came together in potentially landmark legal bids based on a Supreme Court ruling on the interpretation of joint 'enterprise'.
But the Court of Appeal held that they should instead take their cases to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - the body set up to examine potential miscarriages of justice.
Lord Justice Gillen said there is no authority for reopening cases every time a judicial adjudication clarifies or interprets the law in a particular way.
He said: "To do so would render the legal system uncertain, incoherent and dysfunctional."
The ruling was centred on the court's jurisdiction and did not assess the merits of each case.
Defence lawyers want the cases re-examined following a new finding on a law that allowed people to be convicted of murder even if they did not inflict the fatal blow.
In February the UK's highest court held that joint enterprise has been wrongly applied for more than 30 years.
The ruling, reached in the case of Ameen Jogee for the murder of former Leicestershire policeman Paul Fyfe in 2011, could eventually pave the way for hundreds of appeals.
Those seeking to rely on that verdict are:
:: Nigel Brown (32), one of two men convicted of killing 15-year-old Thomas Devlin on Belfast's Somerton Road in 2005.
:: Barry Skinner (36), jailed for his role in the murder of 22-year-old Alexander McKinley in east Belfast in 2002.
:: Mark Kincaid (34), one of three men found guilty of murdering hospital porter David Hamilton in Belfast's Ballybeen estate in 2004.
:: Peter Greer (40), convicted of murdering Duncan Morrison and the attempted murder of Stephen Ritchie in a gun attack in Bangor in 2011.
:: Stephen McCaughey (28), jailed for his part in the killing of farm labourer Philip Strickland (37) near Comber in 2012.
:: Brenda Meehan (47), whose murder conviction in connection with the 2007 killing of Jim McFadden in Derry was reduced on appeal to manslaughter.
The five men involved appeared together via a prison video-link.
Among those packed into the public gallery were Thomas Devlin's parents, Penny Holloway and Jim Devlin.
Counsel representing Brown contended that the Jogee ruling established enough of a procedural flaw in all of the defendants' original appeals to render those proceedings null and void.
But Lord Justice Gillen agreed with a prosecution barrister that the CCRC is the proper forum for assessing the cases.
