A High Court bid by Mr David Trimble to overturn a ruling that he acted illegally in banning Sinn Féin ministers from attending cross-border meetings has failed.
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Mr David Trimble
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In an Appeal Court ruling in Belfast, Lord Chief Justice Carswell upheld a judgment earlier this year that the Ulster Unionist party leader had acted unlawfully in preventing Sinn Féin ministers from attending meetings with their Dublin counterparts.
Mr Trimble had imposed the ban on Minister for Education Mr Martin McGuinness and Minister for Health Ms Bairbre de Brún.
The judge maintained Mr Trimble's reason for imposing the ban - that it was a bid to put pressure on the IRA to begin decommissioning - could not be accepted. Such an outcome was only one aspect of the Belfast Agreement, he said.
Lord Chief Justice Carswell insisted fostering north-south links was another crucial strand of the agreement.
"It must follow that as a matter of law it cannot be sustained as a valid exercise of that discretionary power," he said.
Mr Trimble indicated later that he was planning to appeal the judgment in the House of Lords.
In a one-line statement issued after the Court of Appeal's ruling, the Ulster Unionists confirmed: "The Rt Hon David Trimble MP, MLA, the former First Minister, has instructed his lawyers to advise on petitioning the House of Lords' Appeal Committee for leave to appeal today's decision of Her Majesty's Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland."
Later Mr McGuinness dismissed Mr Trimble's plan to appeal the decision. "He can go whereever he likes. He is not going to succeed, the two judgments made against him are very clear.
"The whole world will hear this decision and the whole world will know that David Trimble is continuing to obstruct and prevent change. I hope that over the course of the weekend he has a road-to-Damascus change of heart".
PA