Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant could have taken “no other decision” than to halt the Drumcree march in Portadown, Co Armagh, the High Court in Belfast has heard.
Legal representatives of the PSNI also pushed back against assertions that police were substantively considering the “feelings of the PIRA [Provisional IRA]” in security assessments relating to the parade’s ability to proceed.
Members of the Orange Order are seeking a judicial review after Bryant halted the march from going along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road amid large-scale protests by residents opposed to the procession. His decision on October 9th followed a two-week stand-off.
The application for judicial review against that decision is being heard by Judge David Scoffield.
It includes a challenge to the decision by PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher to ask Bryant to review the determination made by the Parades Commission, which had given the go-ahead for the parade.
Barrister Phillip McAteer outlined discussions Bryant engaged in with party leaders over the course of the stand-off, as well as with members of the Portadown District of the Orange Order and the Garvaghy Road residents, which the barrister maintained were “an attempt to facilitate the procession and reach agreement”.
It was said in the course of those talks there was no resolution that was acceptable to the Orangemen that did not involve going down the Garvaghy Road, and none to the residents that involved the Orange Order doing so, leading the talks to end unsuccessfully.
McAteer highlighted that the Secretary of State said at this stage that his door was still open and it was only when he received updated information of the security situation changing that he intervened.
He outlined the Secretary of State’s position by October 9th that the Parades Commission determination “could no longer be given effect, but it was properly reached on the basis of information before the commission at that time”.
“Which reflects something which was important to the Orange Order, which was the importance of the fact that their determination had been lawfully reached in the first place, a matter which has been confirmed by the court of appeal,” McAteer said.
“So that preserved that position, but also reflected the reality of the situation whereby the determination couldn’t now be given effect.”
Later, arguing the Secretary of State could not have amended the ruling to allow the march to proceed in a different form, McAteer said it was “repeated over and over and over” that the march for the Orange Order “was only about marching the Garvaghy Road”, which the residents were “blatantly opposed to”.
“No other decision by the Secretary of State would have achieved the aims, which was to end that stand-off and therefore mitigate all of those risks and avoid public disorder, crime, and ensure an appropriate balancing of the convention rights,” he said.
On Monday, Richard McConkey, who represents a member of the Orange Order, referred to a senior officer having access to nine intelligence risk assessments and said a police record from the officer included the phrase “the feelings of the PIRA”.
Barrister for the PSNI, Peter Coll, said there were “interests outside the confines of this court” in relation to that line and highlighted there were “other mechanisms” to put concerns around it to the Chief Constable.
[ DUP accuses Bryant of ‘disgraceful appeasement’ on Garvaghy Road marchOpens in new window ]
He said it had been suggested that “a commander had been taking account of and working with the feelings of PIRA”, when the log was a description of intelligence information.
He said: “What he’s saying there is: ‘I’ve seen intelligence documents, I’m mindful of their contents’, and then he breaks down what the contents are, and the contents include, as he phrases it, ‘the feelings of the PIRA’, and he’s simply stating that as a fact.”
Coll agreed with the judge’s characterisation of the police position that it is “unfair to read that as: ‘We don’t want to hurt the feelings of the PIRA’”.
A judgment is to be given next week. – PA