Re French
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1985 |
| Date | 01 January 1985 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
Exclusion of councillors - Council resolved that members be required to make declaration - Applicants refused -Excluded from meeting - Whether statutory power to require declaration - Whether protective and self-defensive powers of council include power to exclude members - Whether limited to control of meeting - Whether ultra vires - Local Government Act (Northern Ireland), 1972 (c. 9), s. 7(1) - Northern Ireland Constitution Act, 1973 (c. 36), s. 21(1).
Craigavon Borough Council resolved, by a majority, that members should not be permitted to attend or participate in meetings until they signed a declaration that they would not use their position as councillors for the purpose of advancing the aims and objects of any organisation which engaged in violence or acts of terrorism or whose aim was the subversion of the state. It was also resolved that any councillor failing to sign the declaration should be excluded from meetings and other council business. The applicants and two other councillors refused to sign the declaration and were subsequently removed from the council chamber. The applicants sought a declaration that the resolutions were invalid arguing that, by virtue of section 21(1) of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act, 1973, it was unlawful for the council to require members to make such declaration, that the council had no statutory or common law power to require such declaration or exclude members for refusing to make it, and that if the council had the power to exclude members on grounds of security it had been used for an ulterior purpose. The respondent contended that section 21(1) of the 1973 Act should be construed with the assistance of the heading to Part III of the Act and thus limited to declarations offensive to religious or political beliefs. Held, granting the declarations sought, that, 1, in construing section 21(1) of the 1973 Act the court could have regard to the headings forming the title of parts of the Act. While the context of section 21(1) was such that the legislature had in mind that the provisions of the subsection would be primarily aimed at declarations offensive to a person's religious or political beliefs, it did not necessarily follow that the legislature intended that only declarations...
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Law, Struggle, and Political Transformation in Northern Ireland
...by former Unionist Lord Mayor of Belfast in ReMcCann’s Application [1992] NIJB, no. 9, 22.124 In Re French and Others’ Application [1985] NI 310, Justice Carswell held that acouncil was not acting unreasonably in excluding Sinn Fein councillors. He arguedthat to do so could be justified und......