Palestine flag case: TUV confident of victory as legal showdown set for next month
The TUV’s deputy leader says he’s confident of victory in a legal challenge to Belfast Council, as a courtroom battle is set for next month.
Ron McDowell, who sits on the council representing the Court district in the north-west of the city, says unionists are convinced officials aren’t handling call-in procedures around minority rights correctly, leading to a situation in which Sinn Fein, the largest party, is “marking their own homework”.
He told the News Letter after a preliminary court hearing today: “We are confident in the case brought by a TUV member, Ann McClure, and look forward to that case being heard in January.
“To us minority rights are absolute, but we believe we can show Belfast Council’s position is that the council gets the final word – something that’s contrary to legislation.
“This isn’t just a unionist issue; if we’re successful, this will mean that everybody benefits right across Northern Ireland.”
Today’s hearing came after a week of anger around a decision to hoist the Palestinian flag from Belfast city hall, a decision that split the council on Monday night and passed by just four votes.
A nationalist-driven move was originally to see the flag to fly from city hall on November 29, an international day of solidarity with Palestinian people that’s been around since the 1970s.
That was halted at the eleventh hour after unionists challenged the decision, leading lawyers to find procedural failures with the initial vote and overturn it.
The problem, it was stated, was the council should have considered the potential impact of hoisting the banner on protected groups, but didn’t run the necessary equality tests that would give them that information until after politicians had already voted to put it up.
On Tuesday, unionists failed in a bid to get an emergency injunction against the flag, resulting in it flying from midnight until dusk – alleged by Mr McDowell to be a break with normal protocols of dawn to dusk.
Monday night’s second debate on flying the flag saw Alliance switch their position on the idea.
The party backed it when the issue first came to the council at the start of November, but this week flipped to vote with unionists opposed to hoisting the Palestinian banner over Belfast.
Alliance officials didn’t fully explain why that happened, but earlier this week pointed the News Letter to “sensitivities around flag policies” on Belfast Council.