Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal has ruled that Stormont’s Health Minster, and not UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, should decide on whether to lift the lifetime ban that is currently in place to prevent gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

The ban has been in place since the 1980s and was introduced in response to the emergence of AIDS.

Previous Northern Ireland Health Ministers Edwin Poots and Jim Wells had decreed that the ban should stay in place.

In 2013, a High Court judge ruled that the decision to keep the ban was ‘irrational’, and suggested that Poots had been swayed by his born-again Christian beliefs. The judge said that Poots did not have the power keep the lifetime ban in place.

Poots has been fighting the ruling for the past three years, and it has also been challenged by the British Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, leading to today’s hearing.

The Court of Appeal in Belfast, by a 2-1 majority, dismissed the earlier ruling.

Delivering the ruling, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan said, ‘There is no basis for the conclusion that the minister’s decision in this case was pre-determined by his Christian beliefs, and there is ample evidence to indicate that the minister approached the decision-making by evaluating the competing factors before adopting on a precautionary basis the status quo.

‘We do not consider that the fair minded and informed observer could conclude that there was a real risk of apparent bias.’

The ruling can be regarded as a vindication for Poots, but also means that the lifetime ban can be re-examined.

Current Health Minister Simon Hamilton has previously indicated that he is prepared to lift the ban if Government advisory body’s say they believe it is safe to do so.

Although blanket bans on gay men donating blood were introduced in most areas around the world, several countries have recently lifted the bans or shortened the deferral period that gay men have to wait before donating blood.

Since 2011, in England, Scotland and Wales, gay men have been able to donate blood if they have not had sex with another man in over a year.

Ban ‘sends the message that gay and bisexual men are inherently flawed’

Responding to the ruling, John O’Doherty, Director of LGBT health and wellbeing organization The Rainbow Project, said, ‘it is disappointing that their lordships have failed to recognize that there is no reasonable, rational or medical reason to maintain this lifetime ban, particularly in light of the fact that all other regions of the UK have moved to a temporary deferral.

‘Today’s judgment clarified that the issue of blood donations remains within the purview of the Northern Ireland Minster for Health, Social Services and Public Safety.

‘We would once again urge Minister Hamilton to accept the advice given by the experts in SaBTO [Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs] and adopt the one year deferral which exists in all other parts of the UK.

‘The evidence shows that allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood presents an infinitesimally small risk to the blood transfusion service and that maintaining this ban, without evidence to support it, sends the message that gay and bisexual men are inherently flawed. This must be remedied.’