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NI: Adams exclusion case goes to Luxembourg

01 July 1994

After two days of close and mostly technical legal argument, Gerry Adams' case was referred by the High Court in London to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg for rulings on questions of European law. For a while, the judges were clearly interested in Adams' lawyers' argument that the order was imposed for an improper motive, ie to repay the Unionists for their support in the Maastricht debate, without which the government would have fallen. A PTA order can only be imposed to prevent acts of terrorism, and the timing of the order on Adams, following Tony Benn's invitation to him to address the Commons, made for a very strong case that PTA powers were unlawfully used. But the judges stopped short, leant back and sent the case to Europe instead. A reference to the ECJ is likely to take at least a year to be answered, and the court evidently hopes that the issue of Adams' freedom to come to London will have been resolved one way or the other before they have to adjudicate on it again.

R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Gerard Adams 21 & 22.7.94 Divisional Court.