Carla Lockhart says Parades Commission chiefs must quit or be sacked - and the total abolishment of the quango must be an option
Commissioners on the public body which adjudicates on parade disputes should resign voluntarily or be removed by the government, a DUP MP has said.
Describing an Orangeman’s legal victory over the Parades Commission as “seismic”, Carla Lockhart says there is “a clear obligation on the Secretary of State to remove them from office”.
The unprecedented legal action resulted in High Court judge Mr Justice McAlinden warning that if the body had “brazened it out and required the court to make an order on the basis of evidence” he would have awarded indemnity costs.
The court was told that a determination on a return march from Drumcree church to Portadown via the Garvaghy Road had not been considered in its “final form” by all members of the commission.
The Upper Bann MP said: “This is a massive victory for Portadown District and a massive victory for unionism and loyalism.
“I cannot speak highly enough of Jamie Bryson LL.B, Emma McIlveen BL and John Larkin KC.
“The scale and quality of the legal work has been phenomenal.
“Jamie’s forensic legal analysis and relentless determination to interrogate every aspect of the Commission’s process, coupled with the outstanding expertise of Emma and John, has formed a formidable team”. Ms Lockhart said: “We have seen what the Commission has now formally admitted as false evidence having been given under oath; Commissioners not even reading much less approving determinations being issued in their names; decision making via Whatsapp; reliance being placed on faceless online ‘troll’ accounts masquerading as unionists; in black and white Commissioners stating they did not want to give the Loyal Orders any ‘angle’; and a whole host of other legal errors.
“The Commissioners should now voluntarily resign, and I call on them to do the right thing and do so. If they do not, there is a clear obligation on the Secretary of State to remove them from office”, she said.
The DUP MP said that any review into the Parades Commission’s future “should have as an active possibility the abolishment of the” organisation.