Hard-Liners Lose Bid to Oust Northern Ireland Leaders

Protestant hard-liners lost a legal effort Friday to topple the leaders of Northern Ireland’s unity government.

In Belfast High Court, Justice Brian Kerr ruled that the Nov. 6 election of First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan was valid, even though it happened after a six-week deadline for the posts to be filled.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which is part of the power-sharing government but wants it dismantled, had argued that the law governing how the coalition works required the posts to be filled by Nov. 4.

Because that didn’t happen, the Protestant party argued, Britain was obliged to call a new general election in the province.

But in his ruling, Kerr said it would best serve community interests to enforce this deadline “with latitude.”

He said the 1998 Good Friday peace accord sought to promote the widest possible agreement among political parties and it would be “inimical to that concept to impose an inflexible time limit.”

Trimble, who leads the biggest Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, had struggled for several months to secure sufficient Protestant support within Northern Ireland’s 108-seat legislature to be reelected to the top Cabinet post.

The Democratic Unionists, led by the Rev. Ian Paisley, had hoped that Britain would dissolve the legislature immediately.

Paisley believes that his party would outpoll Trimble’s candidates, become the largest Protestant party--and torpedo power-sharing.