IN THE MATTER OF ROONEY, JR181(3), BELFAST CITY COUNCIL, DEFRA AND DERRY & STRABANE DISTRICT COUNCIL & IN THE MATTER OF THE DECISION MADE BY THE MINISTER FOR THE DAERA 

On 15 December 2022, Mr Justice Colton, in the High Court in Belfast granted an application for judicial review by Edward Rooney, an anonymised individual JR181(3) and Belfast City Council in respect of their challenge to a written instruction issued by the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to his Department on 2 February 2022 to cease all checks relating to animals and various agri-food goods moving from Great Britain (“GB”) into Northern Ireland (“NI”) by 00.01 on Thursday 3 February 2022.  Derry & Strabane DC intervened as a Notice Party in support of Belfast City Council. 

These checks, referred to as the Official Control Regulations (EU 2017/625) checks (“OCR checks”), had been performed by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (“DAERA”) since 1 January 2021 in order to comply with the UK’s legal obligations arising from its withdrawal from the European Union. The court quashed the Minister’s instruction and declared that it was unlawful and of no effect.

The full judgment is available on the Judiciary NI website

Gregory Jones KC appeared as senior counsel for Derry & Strabane (instructed by Philip Kingston of D&S DC)
Professor Gordon Attorney BL appeared as junior counsel for Belfast City Council (Instructed by Belfast City Council Legal Services)