Debate contribution: Rule of Law

Debate contribution by Mr Pat Sheehan on 20 October 2026.

MLA

Mr Pat Sheehan

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

20 October 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Rule of Law

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5801126

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Peaceful protest is a fundamental democratic right. It has been a legitimate form of resistance across the world and throughout our history. I make absolutely no apology for standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of the Garvaghy Road in peaceful opposition to an unwanted, unnecessary and sectarian parade. I was proud to stand with that community, and I would do so again. For almost three decades, those residents have sought nothing more than the right to live in peace, free from sectarian intimidation and harassment. Twenty-eight years after the Good Friday Agreement, surely that is not too much to ask. The motion talks about the "rule of law", but it goes much further than that. It demands that elected representatives "be brought to justice", calls for the removal of Deirdre Hargey from the Policing Board and seeks further legislation against elected representatives. There is an important distinction between defending the rule of law and demanding punishment before the legal process has concluded or, in this case, even started. Deirdre Hargey is an activist: someone who stands up for her community and any community that is being persecuted. She stood with the residents of the lower Ormeau Road, who were facing unwanted marches, and she stood with the families of the Sean Graham bookies massacre, who continue to be targeted. She stands on the side of right, and I am proud to stand with her. It is for the courts to adjudicate on such issues, not political opponents seeking to deliver their own verdict in the Chamber. I have to question the timing of the motion. In recent days, the DUP's former leader Jeffrey Donaldson, the paedophile, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of children. There were 18 offences and two victims. Appalling crimes were committed over many years. Those are the facts established by a court of law. We are entitled to question the motives behind the motion. We are told that it is about respect for the law. Respecting the law also means respecting due process, the presumption of innocence and the independence of the justice system. It does not mean using the Assembly to pronounce guilt or to demand the punishment of political opponents. It certainly does not mean that communities should be expected to remain silent when they believe that their rights and dignity are being disregarded. I have heard nothing from unionism about the wrath incurred by unnotified parades that have taken place over the past week. The DUP stands for law and order, or so it says. We listen day after day to its Members' sanctimonious bleatings about what great Christians they are, and we remember that Jeffrey Donaldson also told us what a great Christian he was. He demonstrated it by wearing the little fish badge on his lapel. Of course, none of his colleagues happened to notice the double life that he was leading. Nobody knew anything about it. He lived with an invisible cloak around him.

No one on the Benches opposite wants to talk about Jim Shannon being kicked out of the British Army because of his links to extremist loyalists or the fact that he spent five days under interrogation at Castlereagh. They do not want to talk about Ulster Resistance. They do not want to talk about Ian Paisley placing a red beret on his head in the Ulster Hall and saying that Ulster Resistance had his undivided support and that he would provide any political cover that it needed. Other leading members of the DUP were involved in setting up Ulster Resistance: people such as Sammy Wilson, Nigel Dodds and Noel Little. Of course, Noel Little then went on to secure a shipment of weapons via the apartheid regime in South Africa that was used to kill dozens upon dozens of innocent Catholics. The DUP does not want to talk —.

But you are the law and order party.

You are the party of law and order.

You are the party of law and order.

You are the party of law and order, so you keep telling us, and how sanctimonious you are when you are telling us. We listen to the bleating every day about law and order and your saying, "Oh my goodness, we are so good. We respect law and order", but you do not respect it at all. You do not respect law and order when it is your own people breaking the law, and that is the difficulty, because everyone sees your hypocrisy and your double standards. That is what we see. We see it when it comes to Jeffrey Donaldson, we see it when it comes to Jim Shannon, and we see it when it comes to Ulster Resistance. The hypocrisy is absolutely breathtaking.

800 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Flagged Parades, bonfires and commemorations

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 23 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mainly advances divisiveness

Against the published rubric

The contribution makes a legitimate point about due process, saying it is "for the courts to adjudicate" rather than political opponents. Much of it, though, carries on the parades dispute, calling a loyal order parade "unwanted, unnecessary and sectarian", and then becomes an extended attack on a unionist party as a group. It mocks members' professed faith ("sanctimonious bleatings about what great Christians they are", "the little fish badge"), uses a former leader's crimes to question the motion's motives, and ties the party to loyalist paramilitary arms used "to kill dozens upon dozens of innocent Catholics", closing with "your own people breaking the law". This meets the rubric's identity framing, its identity-based attack on a party, and escalation beyond the motion's substance.

Public interest or divisiveness

The due-process argument and the defence of residents' right to peaceful protest engage with substance. But the larger part of the speech is communal point-scoring. It ridicules opponents' religious identity, links a party and its "own people" to paramilitary violence against Catholics, and repeats "you are the party of law and order" as a taunt. Its evident function is to deepen an identity row rather than to scrutinise the motion.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 23 October 2026 at 12:25 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification