Courts in Northern Ireland should be prepared to sit during the night and on weekends to ensure a challenge against a no-deal Brexit is heard, a judge was told.
A barrister for victims’ campaigner Raymond McCord said it was vital his case was concluded within two weeks, so the judgment could be examined by the Supreme Court later this month, when the UK’s highest court is set to arbitrate on challenges being taken in England and Scotland against the prorogation of Parliament.
Ronan Lavery QC said Northern Ireland was “central” to the Brexit process, warning that a no deal could “wreck” the region.
He urged legal colleagues to put their “shoulder to the wheel” and consider sitting into the night and over the weekend to get the case heard.
“It’s vital that our Northern Ireland case is heard concurrently with those in England and Scotland,” he said.
“And we don’t just sit by in Northern Ireland watching England and Scotland determine what’s going to happen here. We need to have a say in it.”
Proceedings in Mr McCord’s case in Belfast High Court were interrupted on Tuesday morning when Chris Carter, a Co Down man who once unsuccessfully challenged Northern Ireland’s smoking ban, asked to address the court.
Mr Carter went on to accuse those attempting to challenge the prorogation of Parliament of committing “high treason” against the Queen.
Mr McCord, and two other applicants, are challenging the Government’s handling of the Brexit process. The cases are due to be heard as one.
The campaigner, whose son Raymond McCord Jnr was murdered by loyalists in 1997, had initially sought a discrete interim relief hearing to challenge the prorogation of Parliament.
Mr Lavery agreed with judge Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey on Tuesday that the need to hear his client’s wider case on Brexit as soon as possible meant it would be impractical to have a separate hearing on the parliamentary suspension beforehand.
Justice McCloskey said a provisional date of September 16 for the rolled-up hearing involving the three applicants would need to be brought forward.
The judge told the court that he had received notice from the Supreme Court of its intent to examine the outcome of the Scottish and English challenges against prorogation on September 17.
Justice McCloskey noted that the cases in Great Britain could be “leap-frogged” to the Supreme Court after judgments were handed down, without having to go through the Court of Appeal first.
He said that did not appear to be an option with the Northern Ireland cases, which would have to go before Appeal Court judges before going to the Supreme Court.
The judge said securing a hearing and judgment in the High Court and then a hearing and judgment in the Appeal Court, all within two weeks, would be “almost miraculous”.
Mr Lavery insisted it could be done, if the will existed.
“It’s a tight time scale but it’s not impossible,” he said.
“It’s achievable if we all put our shoulders to the wheel.”
He stressed the importance of the Supreme Court hearing the Northern Ireland-focused cases.
“A no deal will wreck Northern Ireland,” he claimed.
“Any balanced, sane commentator or person on the street knows that. We need to have our voice heard in the highest court in the UK, an equal voice.”
Mr Lavery said the lack of government at Stormont made the role of the courts even more important.
“The only pillar of government left in Northern Ireland is the courts,” said the barrister.
In an apparent reference to independent unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon, Mr Lavery said the region had only one voice in Westminster advocating a “sensible position” of exiting the EU with a deal.
Of the North’s other 17 MPs, the 10 Brexiteer DUP representatives back Boris Johnson’s insistence on keeping a no deal on the table, while the seven Sinn Féin MPs do not take their seats.
There was legal debate today whether the Northern Ireland cases should deal with the prorogation issue, or leave that matter to the English and Scottish cases and focus the hearing in Belfast on Brexit issues specific to the North.
That argument was forwarded by Government barrister Dr Tony McGleenan QC.
“There is no compelling need for this court to grapple again with the prorogation issues,” he said.