Football hooligan laws: High Court's granting of Jamie Bryson legal challenge 'embarrassing' for Justice Minister - MLA
The High Court has ruled that Stormont’s justice minister has a case to answer in a legal challenge brought by Jamie Bryson over the legality of laws governing Irish league football games.
In an emergency hearing on Thursday afternoon, Mr Justice Humphreys granted Mr Bryson leave to seek a Judicial Review, meaning that Naomi Long’s position on laws to curb football hooliganism is arguably unlawful.
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston says the decision is “deeply embarrassing” for the Alliance minister – who has argued that the current rules permitting football banning orders are still effective.
This week, Stormont’s justice department (DoJ) declined to say whether it will make any updates to regulations, after Mr Bryson claimed that a failure to update the legislation meant the rules were unenforceable.
The Justice (NI) Act 2011 included provisions to regulate sport here – including banning orders and powers to deal with violent or offensive conduct in local grounds.
However, the law was not updated to reflect the fact that top flight teams now play in a league run by a new entity – the Northern Ireland Football League Ltd (NIFL).
The law specifies that in relation to local football it covered the IFA Premiership and the IFA Championship, which haven’t been in existence since NIFL took over running the premier and first divisions in 2013.
Mrs Long contended that authorities can still legally issue banning orders and enforce other crowd control rules, by virtue of a piece of 1950s legislation to prevent laws from becoming outdated.
That was rejected by Mr Bryson who said it was premised on the competitions simply being renamed – when in fact they were being run by a completely new organisation.
Timothy Gaston said the decision to grant Jamie Bryson leave to seek a judicial review “is deeply embarrassing for Mrs Long”
“Having been dismissive of the matter up until now, Niomi Long now finds her Department in a position where they will have to explain themselves in court", he added.
The North Antrim MLA said the matter “could have been addressed by the Minister with the stroke of a pen”.
The case is now listed for further review on April 13. The DoJ has been approached for comment.