Clause 20 — Judicial oath or affirmation

Part of Orders of the Day — Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill – in the House of Commons at 8:00 pm on 4 March 2002.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of David Burnside David Burnside UUP, South Antrim 8:00, 4 March 2002

Unlike most members of my party, including its leader and my hon. Friend Lady Hermon, I did not go to the law faculty at Queen's university; I just struggled through a general degree on the arts side.

The real problem is the totally confused exchange between the Secretary of State and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman about perception and reality—that lies at the very core of this issue—and the fundamental debate that relates to the clauses on the oath and to the later amendments on arms and symbols, to which I shall not refer now. Those issues are interconnected and interrelated.

There is a lack of confidence. The Secretary of State talked clearly and accurately in his interview during the weekend and in his earlier Cold House speech, but he does seem to think that, in our misty red, white and blue eyes of Ulster Unionism, it is our perception that he is dealing with the reality. As a non-lawyer, I can only consider the reality clearly and clinically in the Bill. As a Unionist, my bottom-line belief is that I will not support or vote for anything in the House that weakens the United Kingdom or the fundamental oath of allegiance for me, as an individual subject or citizen, and for the font of the judiciary which is the Crown.

By making us different, we would weaken the Britishness of the people of Northern Ireland and the oath. I am not really disagreeing with my hon. Friend Lady Hermon, but the reality now in Northern Ireland involves judging whether the Bill will weaken or strengthen us as British citizens and subjects. By any judgment, clearly and clinically, it will weaken us. That does not mean that I and other hon. Member across the Unionist Bench might not approve of some improvements to the much worse earlier proposal in the legislation. I would support the Conservative party in its amendment—the leader of my party shakes his head—as I could support the two amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Down. All three amendments deal with the problem that the Bill will weaken our position as full British subjects and citizen. Later clauses will weaken the symbolic personification of the Crown inside and outside the courts in Northern Ireland.