Supreme Court Ruling: Abortion in Northern Ireland Debate
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Deidre Brock
Main Page: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)Department Debates - View all Deidre Brock's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
Supreme Court Ruling: Abortion in Northern Ireland
Deidre Brock Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Supreme Court judgment is as irritating as it is enlightening, with majority views holding sway, rather than unanimity. I note, however, that Lord Kerr, the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, was one of the justices who considered that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission had the right to bring the case and that the law was incompatible. Given his in-depth knowledge of the Northern Irish legal framework and the fact that the judgment points to the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 as the barrier to addressing that incompatibility, will the Government be taking the advice of the judgment and treating that Act as secondary legislation to be amended, or will they prepare the ground for a reinstated Assembly to repeal section 25 of that Act and bring the law into line with human rights?
Karen Bradley
As I said in my opening remarks, at 143 pages there is a lot to digest in this judgment. Together with my officials and lawyers, I will make sure that we have gone through every point of the judgment in order to make a final determination, but I think the hon. Lady would agree that where matters are devolved they should rightly be dealt with by the devolved legislature that has responsibility for them. That is why I want to see those politicians come back to Stormont, form that devolved Government and make those decisions.