The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) brought the legal proceedings with support from Public Interest Litigation Support (PILS).

The court case also has the backing of the Equality Coalition, which includes UNISON NI, Barnardo’s NI and the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network.

It centres on the Northern Ireland Executive’s obligation under section 28E of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (as amended) to “adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to tackle poverty, social exclusion and patterns of deprivation based on objective need”.

That section was inserted in 2007 following the St Andrews Agreement — but no such strategy has ever been adopted by successive Executives.

A previous judicial review launched by CAJ led to the High Court ruling in 2015 that the Executive had acted unlawfully by failing to adopt a strategy.

Significant work to develop an anti-poverty strategy took place from 2020 after the restoration of devolution under the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) deal.

A draft document was completed a number of years ago but has yet to be discussed at the Executive almost a year past the restoration of Stormont in February 2024, according to CAJ.

CAJ director Daniel Holder said: “The anti-poverty strategy is a key unfulfilled legal obligation from peace process agreements.

“The preparatory work was done and strategy drafted in the last Stormont mandate. We were told it was good to go to the Executive — but we are almost a year into ministers being put back in place and no anti-poverty strategy has been adopted.

“Moreover, the draft programme for government does not even name the anti-poverty strategy, despite it being an outstanding legal obligation.”

He added: “We had hoped not to ever have to be back to court again on this matter — but we feel we have no choice.

“A timetable provided to us by the Department of Communities raises questions as whether a strategy would in fact be adopted in this mandate.”

Kate Barry, PILS interim director and solicitor, said: “This case is a prime example of public interest litigation. CAJ is going to court on behalf of communities across Northern Ireland which have been left waiting for action while living costs rise and poverty gaps widen.

“Together, we are determined to hold the Executive accountable for the clear commitments it made over 17 years ago. We need an anti-poverty strategy now — no more excuses, no more delays.”