In Smyth, Re Judicial Review [2017] NIQB 55, Colton J had quashed the General Register Office’s decision to refuse an application for authorisation for a humanist marriage in Northern Ireland on the grounds that the refusal breached the applicant’s ECHR rights. He ordered the GRO to grant the application and gave a temporary authorisation for a humanist celebrant to perform a legally valid and binding humanist wedding ceremony. Accordingly, in June 2017 Ms Laura Lacole (alias Smyth) and her fiancé Eunan O’Kane were married in a ceremony conducted by Humanists UK celebrant Isabel Russo.

This morning, 28 June, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal handed down its substantive judgment on the issue of principle. Continue reading →