Northern Ireland Negotiations (Referendum) Order 1998

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order makes provision for the conduct of a referendum to be held in Northern Ireland under section 4 of the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Act 1996 on the question whether the people of Northern Ireland support the agreement reached in the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland and set out in Command Paper 3883 (article 3(3) and Schedule 1).

Article 3(1) provides that the referendum is to be held on Friday 22nd May. Article 4 sets out the franchise. Article 5(1) provides that the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland is to be the counting officer and article 5(4) requires him to certify the result of the referendum.

Paragraphs (1) and (2) of article 6 apply for the purposes of the referendum the provisions specified in the left-hand columns of Schedules 2 and 3 respectively. These provisions are subject to the general modifications in the right-hand columns of those Schedules. Schedule 2 specifies provisions of the Representation of the People Acts 1983 and 1985 and the Elections (Northern Ireland) Act 1985. Schedule 3 specifies provisions of the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 1986 and the exemptions for elections notices in the Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1992. Article 6(3) converts references to a parliamentary election into references to the referendum; references to parliamentary electors into electors at the referendum; references to voting for a candidate into references to voting for an answer at the referendum; and other similar changes.

Article 7 provides for Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays to be disregarded when computing time for the purposes of the Order.