On 12 October 2026, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that the Orange Order’s planned march along the Garvaghy Road, which had been approved by the Parades Commission, could proceed. However, on 9 October, Sir Chris Bryant, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, banned the march before the court could issue a ruling. The validity of this decision was upheld by the Northern Ireland High Court in a separate case on 28 October.
Despite the surrounding furore, these rulings concerned comparatively prosaic issues: whether the Parades Commission and the Secretary of State had exercised their powers lawfully under the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 in making their respective decisions. This process by which courts scrutinise the decisions of public bodies and officials is known as judicial review.
Mindful of the controversy surrounding the cases before them, the courts were keen to clarify their role in judicial review. It is not for the courts to determine whether a public body or official made the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decision: their role is to determine only whether the decision was lawful. Where a court concludes that a decision was lawfully taken, it will generally not substitute its own decision for that of the public body or official, even if it might have reached a different decision itself.
In the end, the courts upheld both the Parades Commission’s decision and the Secretary of State’s ban, leaving the planned march along the Garvaghy Road unable to proceed. Although the approach of the courts could in no sense be described as unorthodox, the judges’ tone was noticeably defensive as they clarified their role. Mr Justice Scoffield, the judge in the case before the High Court, was particularly critical of the “inaccurate … public comments reported in media articles … which seem[ed] to suggest that the courts had ordered that the procession must go ahead”.
Whilst consistent with established legal principles, the courts’ declination to assess the ‘merits’ of either decision may, for some, prove to be an unsatisfactory verdict, particularly given the deeply tumultuous history of the Garvaghy Road. Those who ask, echoing a question posed by the Roman poet Juvenal, ‘[w]ho will watch the watchmen?’ may find little solace in the answer: the courts, albeit on grounds of legality, not public sentiment.
By: Daniel Proctor