Re Curran and McCann
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1985 |
| Date | 01 January 1985 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
Council delegated functions to special committee - Whether delegation for better regulation and management of council's functions - Whether a protective and self-defensive power to exclude - Whether judicial notice of party policy - Whether powers exercised reasonably - Local Government Act (Northern Ireland), 1972 (c. 9), s. 18(1) - European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, art. 17.
The applicants were members of the Sinn Fein party who were elected as councillors of Craigavon Borough Council. After the applicants refused to comply with a resolution of the council that they sit at a special table apart from the main table in the council chamber, the council resolved, by a majority, to appoint a special committee of the council consisting of all members of the council except the applicants and delegated to the special committee all the functions of the council except those expressly reserved by section 18(1) of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland), 1972, to the council. The applicants sought an order quashing the resolutions. Held, that the resolutions were ultra vires and void, 1, the power in section 18(1) of the 1972 Act to delegate to a committee was a power to appoint a committee for the better management and regulation of the council's business. It was not the intendment of the section that it be used to exclude a councillor from the work and activities of the council for protective and self-defensive purposes and a power given for one purpose cannot be exercised for another purpose. 2. The protective and self-defensive powers of a council to regulate its own proceedings implied by common law did not include a power to exclude members of a party proclaiming a particular policy. While it could be argued that a council could not properly exercise its functions if members of a particular party harnessed together its activities within the council chamber with its support outside that chamber for...
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Re French
...power either to expel or exclude councillors or to require a declaration on security grounds, In re Curran and McCann's ApplicationDNI [1985] N.I. 261 considered. ...