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NORTHERN Ireland's top law officer cannot refer the case of Christian bakers found to have unlawfully refused to make a pro-gay marriage cake to the Supreme Court, senior judges have ruled. Mr Lee had requested a cake depicting Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie below the motto 'Support Gay Marriage' for an event to mark International Day Against Homophobia. The Lord Chief Justice confirmed: \"We have determined that we didn't have the power to refer full stop.\"

  John Larkin QC made the claim as he challenged a judge's finding that it was wrong to prohibit the termination of a foetus \"doomed to die\" because it cannot exist outside the womb. Mr Justice [Horner] held it was \"illegitimate and disproportionate to place a prohibition on the abortion of both a foetus doomed to die because it is incapable of an existence independent of the mother's womb and the viable foetus conceived as a result of sexual crime\". Mr Larkin contended that, paradoxically, the High Court ruling had failed to weigh the two women's experiences in the balance. \"One is dealing with human life that may be of short duration but is nonetheless precious,\" he said. \"When the trial judge says there's no human life to protect, that's plainly wrong.\"

\"For those of us living in Northern Ireland, the Easter Rising was used in a very negative way to justify a campaign of terrorism against fellow Irish people,\" she wrote. \"It's obviously for me a very negative event and something that was a very violent attack. \"Commemoration is a completely different issue because then you are giving some legitimacy to what happened at that time. For those of us who lived in Northern Ireland in the '70s, '80s and '90s, it certainly is not something I would be able to do.\" [Nichola Mallon], meanwhile, wrote that she wanted 2016 to be a personal \"year of education\". \"I want to learn from what went before,\" she said. \"Importantly, we need to look at what we have in common, which we are getting better at.\"

Last month's case was halted by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, Lord Justice Weir and Lord Justice Weatherup following a last-minute request from Mr [John Larkin]. In May 2014 Mr [Lee] ordered a cake featuring Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie, with the slogan 'Support gay marriage', for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia. Following a three-day hearing last March, District Judge Isobel Brownlie found Ashers directly discriminated against Mr Lee, who had been treated \"less favourably\" contrary to the law.

Mr [John Larkin] wrote that \"providing for a criminal law exception for 'fatal foetal abnormality', as proposed by this amendment, provides unborn children diagnosed with such a disability with much less protection under the law of Northern Ireland than those without such a disability\". Mr Larkin said: \"Those unborn children who are 'doomed to die' or are otherwise regarded by the proposers of this amendment as unworthy of life because of the nature of their disability are as protected by the UN convention as any others.\" \"Legislating for access to abortion in cases of fatal and severe foetal impairments is in no way incompatible with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. To suggest otherwise simply serves to confuse public understanding of the issue and provides cover for those politicians who do not wish to bring Northern Ireland's law into compliance with international human rights standards.\" Mr [Patrick Corrigan] claimed there was \"huge public support in Northern Ireland for access to abortion on these grounds\".

The judge's words also provide some legal reassurance to medical professionals, who have long been concerned -- due to unwarranted political interference in medical decision-making -- that they could be liable to prosecution for assisting people who find themselves in these dreadful circumstances. Beyond that, the judgment is an important and explicit riposte to those who would seek to impose their strongly held religious or moral beliefs on others, with the support of criminal sanctions. This, I would say, includes many of our politicians and public figures. That's why I was dismayed but not surprised to see the Attorney General for Northern Ireland John Larkin (below) say that he was \"profoundly disappointed\" by the decision and \"considering the grounds for appeal\". In 2008, before he took up the role of Attorney General, Mr Larkin memorably described aborting a highly disabled foetus in the womb as akin to \"putting a bullet in the back of the head of the child two days after it's born\". Three years ago questions were raised over Mr Larkin's call for Stormont to investigate the legal status of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast, with his personal assistance.

  'Emotional journey' Saying the re-enactment was \"a unique event\", the Deerys' solicitor, Richard Campbell of Quigley Grant and Kyle said: \"It has been a very difficult and emotional journey for the family of Manus Deery but they are determined to see it through.\" In one of the most harrowing accounts, Edward Brady tells of how his Catholic father was killed by the British army. His Protestant mother was then banished by republicans. Later, the Brady children were put into care in Britain: \"We were fostered out to people that didn't like us, treated us like slaves.\"

Going on vacation? Send us your selfies, like Lauren and John Larkin of Ridgefield, who took this photo on a gondola ride in Venice, Italy.

The past may require legislation. Here, Mr [John Larkin]'s views are known. In a 2013 interview he told me that there should be an end to prosecutions for Troubles-related killings in return for information. It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction; he had thought it out. In 2011, for instance, he predicted that Coroner's Courts would probably be \"front and centre of the way in which we explore our past\". He later changed his mind and accused then Senior Coroner John Leckey of pushing for 21 inquests into Troubles-related deaths. The High Court backed Mr Larkin on that one.