Belfast Council is to again vote on flying the flag of Palestine from city hall, after Unionists forced the issue back to the debate chamber

Sinn Fein had pushed for the flag to fly from the top of city hall on Saturday, a day that saw supporters of the Palestinian cause march though the city centre.

But the move was halted at the eleventh hour, the council confirming on Friday that lawyers had found procedural failures with the original vote.

The idea had been jointly called in by unionist parties opposed to it, raising the procedural problems as they did so.

Lawyers rejected claims that flying the flag would be a discriminatory act against Jewish people, however, stating that no one from Belfast’s Jewish community had contacted the council over the issue, and concluding that hoisting it over city hall was supposed to be a message of solidarity with the Palestinian people, not an expression of political support for the country’s rulers or government.

Tonight (1st) the issue returns to Belfast Council, with politicians setting up a special meeting at which they will discuss the call-in.

It will also see the council vote for a second time on whether to fly the flag from city hall – though there’s now less point in hoisting it, as it was supposed to be done for an international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people that came and went on November 29.

Lawyers analysing the call-in found that the council hadn’t properly checked equality issues before the flag move was passed near the start of last month.

Although it was run through equality tests more than a week after politicians voted to hoist the banner above city hall, lawyers said those tests should have been done before the vote so councillors could factor them into their decision.

States an official report: “Council members did not, and still have not, seen and considered [equality test results]. It did not therefore inform their decision making.”

The report adds that “no equality screening exercise was carried out” in advance of the vote, and politicians therefore didn’t have any information about the potential impact their decision could have on protected groups.

States the lawyer who compiled the report: “It is my view that the subject proposal should have been screened before the decision was made by councillors, in order to identify the likely impact on equality of opportunity or good relations for any of the [protected] categories.

“I consider this to be a procedural failure, with the result that the decision was not arrived at after a proper consideration of the relevant facts and issues.”

The lawyer clarified that the move didn’t need to be taken to a full equality impact assessment, as unionists had argued, but insisted the results of equality tests carried out in the wake of the initial decision need to be considered when the issue is voted on for a second time.

The call-in and second vote have been given a half-hour slot immediately before the council’s standard monthly full meeting tonight.