A High Court judge in Belfast has refused to disqualify himself from a hearing into whether senior barristers should be obliged to promise to serve Queen Elizabeth. Two barristers claim the oath discriminates against them as nationalists. They had called on the judge hearing the case, Mr Justice Kerr, to disqualify himself because he had been on a panel which backed the oath. Their lawyers claimed the judge could be perceived as biased. But Mr Justice Kerr said no reasonable person could conclude that he would fail in his duty to be impartial and refused to disqualify himself from the case.
The two applicants, Barry Macdonald and Seamus Treacy, were to have been formally called to the Inner Bar, becoming Queen's Counsels, in Belfast along with 10 colleagues two weeks ago. They stayed away from the ceremony because they would have been obliged to declare they would well and truly serve the Queen.
