The High Court in Belfast began hearing the Drumcree Parade legal challenge Belfast on Monday after the secretary of state banned the parade on security advice. A lawyer for an Orange Order member told the court dissident republicans may have mounted gun attacks on police if officers had cleared a path on Garvaghy Road.
High Court in Belfast
The hearing follows a delay from last week after the Orange Order added the chief constable to the case. That pushed the challenge into Monday’s list, where the court first heard the intelligence-based case against the ban and the police response to it.
Reading from PSNI intelligence material, the lawyer said it was almost certain that dissidents were among protesters and that it was possible they had access to firearms. He also said the guns could have been used to attack police, and that petrol bombs may have been used in disorder after officers removed protesters.
Boutcher and PSNI
When Boutcher addressed the court, he said the PSNI assessment was that all lawful and proportionate options to facilitate the parade had been exhausted. He said any attempt to police the parade would have involved substantial public order intervention and carried an unacceptable risk of serious and prolonged disorder, with a wider contagion effect.
Boutcher also told the court that the request for Sir Chris to intervene rested on operational policing considerations and was devoid of any public law wrong. He said, “He (Boutcher) was putting the situation in the Secretary of State's hands.”
Intelligence documents
The lawyer cited nine intelligence documents, including one called feelngs of PIRA, and said there was reliable intelligence indicating that mainstream republicans were concerned about their ability to prevent disorder or control dissident republicans. The case now turns on what those documents show about the decision to stop the Drumcree parade and why security advice led to that ban.
The court has heard competing versions of the same risk: one side says the intelligence pointed to possible gun attacks and wider disorder, while the PSNI says the lawful ways to facilitate the parade had already run out. The legal challenge puts that split before the High Court in Belfast, where the evidence behind the ban is now under scrutiny.
