The Assembly and the Executive
by Rick Wilford
From: Aspects of the Belfast Agreement edited by Rick Wilford
Oxford University Press 2001
Given the fine balance between pro and anti-Agreement unionists in the Assembly - see Mitchell, in Chapter 3 of this volume - the petition device could be interpreted as a means of producing gridlock on the floor of the chamber. During both the 'shadow' and 'live' phases of the Assembly, however, the only attempts to move a petition were made by the DUP. On three occasions, it sought to exclude Sinn Fein from the chamber on the ground that it was not committed to 'non violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means,' an obligation for all Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and reinforced by the terms of the ministerial 'Pledge of Office'. Although, the DUP's attempts failed, the delicacy of unionist arithmetic in the Assembly, coupled with concern about the cohesiveness of the UUP'' Assembly group, threatened to make its operation, if not untenable, then certainly difficult. The vexatious use of the cross community voting procedures undoubtedly had the capacity to, at best, frustrate the handling of business in the Assembly and, at worst to bring it to a grinding halt.
The framers of the Agreement could not have anticipated fully such potential difficulties since they were contingent upon the outcome of the Assembly elections, down to the counting of the last transfers. Thus, while the calculation of the Agreement'' signatories may well have been that there was safety in numbers - in this case 30 --as a defence against a troublesome anti-Agreement bloc within the unionist/loyalist camp, the intention that lay behind the provision for a petition of concern was not entirely cynical. It also supplied a potential check to any attempt by the proposed Executive Committee to bulldoze the Assembly in a particular legislative or policy direction. In that sense, the petition device was entirely consistent with the power sharing principle characteristic of consociational democracy: in this case, partnership between legislature and executive - for which read between ethno-national communities, since both were designed to be expressly binational in their composition.
Following the restoration of devolution at the end of May 2000, the DUP
buoyed by the UUC's narrow endorsement (53 per cent to 47 per cent) on 27
May of David Trimble's recommendation that he and his fellow Ministers should
re-enter the Executive - against sought to move a 'Petition of Concern'
designed to exclude Sinn Fein from Ministerial office. On this occasion,
they were successful in attracting the thirty signatures required to trigger
a debate and a vote because Pauline Armitage, one of the Ulster Unionist
MLAs added her name to the petition. Although the motion failed on the ground
that it did not attract cross community support, as the DUP knew it would,
it provided the anti-Agreement unionist parties with the opportunity to
mobilise a majority of unionist members against the participation of Sinn
Fein in government. And they succeeded. Armitage was joined in the division
lobby by two other UUP members, Derek Hussey and Roy Beggs, Jr. Together
with Peter Weir, who had earlier resigned the UUP whip these three 'defectors'
increased the number of unionist MLAs opposed to Sinn Fein's presence in
the Executive Committee to thirty-two out of a total of fifty-eight unionist
members. Provided it remains stable, that new balance of unionist forces
within the Assembly means that future petitions can be moved almost at will.
This would enable anti Agreement parties to at least slow down Assembly
business and embarrass David Trimble or, at worst, erode the level of support
for the First Minister from within his own party to a point where he would
be forced to resign from office, effectively signalling the end of the Assembly.
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