THERE was evident frustration from the three judges on the bench as an intervention by attorney general John Larkin forced them to adjourn the gay cake appeal.
Larkin’s representative raised a possible clash between human rights and equality law, requiring equality law to be struck down, which cannot be what the Equality Commission intended.
Larkin may be accused of grandstanding but somebody needs to blow a whistle on this ridiculous case, which has applied our unique laws against political discrimination - intended as a short-hand for ‘unionist or nationalist’ - to all expressions of political opinion, thereby effectively outlawing politics itself.
The commission only added political discrimination as a technical ploy four months after its initial complaint of discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. It cannot have intended any of this to happen.
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APOCALYPTIC warnings about the repeal of the Human Rights Act are looking a little excitable now that UK justice secretary Michael Gove has admitted any ‘British bill of rights’ will include all the rights in the European Convention and give primacy to the European Court, just like the Human Rights Act.
The only changes he could cite to a bemused Lords committee were more emphasis on free expression and extra protection for serving soldiers - at least until the European Court declares otherwise.
So will Northern Ireland’s rights sector have the wit to declare victory or will it continue shrieking about the End of Days? Go on, have a guess.
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LAST week a former British soldier reported IRA attacks on him during the Troubles to the PSNI, in response to what he sees as an imbalance on dealing with the past.
Now 150 of his colleagues are reportedly doing the same, with the expressed purpose of jamming up the investigatory works.
Fundamental questions are raised by this tactic, which reveals that for all the fancy footwork of the peace process, in law the Troubles remain a domestic crime wave.
In a separate development, former secretary of state Owen Paterson has called for Westminster’s inquiry into lawyers pursuing soldiers abroad to be extended to Northern Ireland.
This equates the Troubles to a foreign war, with implications he may not have thought through.
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AN objection to student housing in central Belfast may also not have been thought through.
Some residents around the Shaftesbury Square area say a proposed student apartment block will create parading tensions on the Twelfth and St Patrick’s Day.
Leaving aside the assumption that all students are nationalists or the fact that they will all be back home with their mammies on the Twelfth anyway, does this not destroy the Orange Order’s argument that the city centre and its arterial routes must be neutral and open to all?
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A JUDGE has awarded almost £50,000 in damages against Sinn Fein MLA Phil Flanagan for a defamatory tweet about UUP MLA Tom Elliott.
Even this huge sum includes a 35 per discount for belated cooperation and it does not include legal fees, which could be twice as much again.
Is it too much to hope this will concentrate Sinn Fein’s mind on libel reform, a subject about which it has been strangely silent?
Elliott’s hope of getting paid is another interesting question. The judge was unable to consider Flanagan’s financial circumstances because he failed to disclose them.
However, during an Assembly debate last October the Fermanagh/South Tyrone MLA mentioned that he lives in private rental accommodation. Sinn Fein’s ‘minimum industrial wage’ also means he is unlikely to have £50,000 lying around.
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AFTER a three-year freeze, Belfast City Council has raised its domestic rates by 1.48 per cent.
Only the UUP voted against, although councillor Jim Rodgers’s inability to explain why led Alliance to wonderfully accuse him of “mumbo jimbonomics”.
There was even worse mumbo jimbo from SDLP councillor Declan Boyle who voted against his party after denying the increase was minimal. “If the Bank of England governor suggested a 1.4 per cent increase in interest rates there would be uproar - this is no different,” he said.
If the interest rate was raised by 1.4 per cent from its current level of 0.5 per cent, that would be an increase of 280 per cent, which most certainly is different.
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THE quote of the week is from Danny Morrison, who said of the Stakeknife story: “to this day I believe the IRA’s version of events”.
As the editor of Republican News and Sinn Fein’s director of publicity, Morrison was responsible throughout most of the Troubles for conveying the IRA’s version of events.
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STORMONT has put its cold war nuclear bunker on the open market for £575,000.
The huge Ballymena facility, regarding by some experts as a world-class historical attraction, would be more valuable and attractive if it had not suffered fire and flood in recent years because the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister - which is supposedly responsible - failed to maintain pumps and electrical equipment, perform regular inspections or allow contents and fittings to be removed for safekeeping.
newton@irishnews.com
