Belfast man wins supreme court ruling over union flag protests

Court overturns successful police appeal against ruling that they failed to protect resident’s right to privacy and family life

A resident of the only Catholic enclave in east Belfast has won a supreme court judgment against police for failing to halt Ulster loyalists’ protests outside his home over changes to the flying of the union flag in the city.

The supreme court on Wednesday overturned an appeal by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) against an original ruling that the force had failed to protect a citizen’s right to privacy and family life.

The resident from the Short Strand district had argued that his rights were violated during violent loyalist protests against Belfast city council’s policy of reducing the number of days the union flag was flown above City Hall.

In April 2014, a judge at the high court in Belfast ruled in favour of the resident of east Belfast, who claimed the police’s failure to stop un-notified loyalist marches past his home between December 2012 and February 2013 breached his right to privacy and family life.

But later that year, appeal judges overturned the ruling following a challenge by the PSNI. The resident then took his case to the supreme court in London.

The PSNI had argued that the original ruling against the force regarding its handling of union flag protests would have placed major constraints on how it polices future parades and demonstrations in the region.

On Wednesday three judges at the supreme court found the PSNI had “misconstrued” its legal powers to stop parades passing through or adjacent to the Short Strand area.

They noted that because the loyalist protests were not sanctioned by the Parades Commission – the body that adjudicates on the legality of controversial marches and demonstrations in Northern Ireland – the events around the Short Strand were not lawful.

Lord Justice Kerr, delivering the supreme court ruling on Wednesday, said: “I would reverse the decision of the court of appeal and make a declaration that, in their handling of the flags protest in Belfast during the months of December and January, PSNI misconstrued their legal powers to stop parades passing through or adjacent to the Short Strand area.”

A spokesman for the PSNI said: “The protracted period of protests, and associated disorder, was a challenging time for everyone in Northern Ireland. Throughout the months of the flag protests the over-riding concern of Police was always the safety of all communities and the protection of life. We have received a copy of the judgment and will now study it carefully.”

Meanwhile the chief constable in Northern Ireland has expressed concern over what he fears is “community silence” regarding dissident republicans who are trying to kill his officers.

George Hamilton, the head of the PSNI, said a lack of community support was hampering police investigations into recent murder attempts on his officers by the New IRA and other dissident republican terror groups.

Hamilton said the inquiry into a New IRA shooting that left one PSNI officer wounded in the arm in north Belfast had hit a dead end. He said: “There is always a reluctance when these violent dissident groups – or indeed any paramilitary or terrorist organisation – is involved.

“There is a reluctance for people out of fear for their own safety to come forward and co-operate with us. It would be fair to say that is probably a hallmark of this investigation as well.”

The officer was shot several times outside a garage on Belfast’s Crumlin Road. Hamilton told the Belfast Telegraph: “He is a good officer, did well in training, did well in his probationary period, was out serving communities doing the job that the public expect of him when he was shot.

“When I met him the morning after the incident, at that point he was very positive and enthusiastic, even though he had been in surgery for a number of hours. He was still able to have a good conversation with me.”

The PSNI is also investigating the firing of shots by the New IRA over the coffin of a veteran west Belfast republican on Sunday night.

Two masked men wearing hoods and dressed in jeans were cheered by a crowd as they fired shots over the coffin of Victor Notarantonio in the Ballymurphy district in the west of the city.

The 67-year-old was a former friend of Gerry Adams but fell out with the Sinn Féin president over the party’s peace strategy and shifted his support from the mainstream republican movement to dissident republicans.

In the 1970s the Italian-Irish republican activist is understood to have kneecapped Adams’s brother Liam in a so-called IRA “punishment shooting”. Liam Adams was singled out for allegedly robbing a republican drinking club while still in the IRA. He was later jailed in connection with sexual assaults on his daughter.

In response to unionist demands that an inquiry be held into the New IRA show of strength on the eve of Notarantonio’s funeral, Ch Insp Norman Haslett said: “Police are aware of footage showing shots apparently being fired by masked men in west Belfast in recent days. An investigation is under way.”

Source: The Guardian