NORTHERN Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws are incompatible with human rights and need “radical reconsideration,” Britain’s Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

But a majority of the court decided that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) had no legal standing to bring its challenge, meaning the court had “no jurisdiction” to declare the legislation on abortion unlawful.

A majority of the seven-judge bench, however, did find that the current laws are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights “insofar as it prohibits abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality.”

Lord Mance said that “the present legislative position in Northern Ireland is untenable and intrinsically disproportionate.”

Campaigners welcomed the decision, with Alliance for Choice Belfast and the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign urging the British government “to take responsibility for these clear human rights breaches” in its Irish colony in a joint statement.

Alliance for Choice spokeswoman Emma Campbell said the decision shows the law “is incompatible with human rights and gives no weight to a woman's person or autonomy."

London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign spokeswoman Cara Sanquest said the situation was now “urgent” and must be addressed.

“Women’s human rights are being breached on a daily basis,” she warned, calling on Westminster to “stop turning a blind eye” to the human rights violations.

Britain’s Abortion Act 1967, which allows abortions to be carried out for up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, does not extend to Northern Ireland, where one may only be carried out if a woman's life is at risk or there is a permanent or serious danger to her mental or physical health.

The NIHRC argued in a hearing last year that the current law criminalises “exceptionally vulnerable” women and girls and subjects them to “inhuman and degrading” treatment.

Pressure has mounted on Theresa May’s Westminster government — currently propped up by Northern Ireland’s religious fundamentalist DUP — to amend abortion laws in the six counties as the Northern Irish Assembly is not active.

Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said in the absence of power-sharing at Stormont, which collapsed in January 2017, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference should meet “as a matter of urgency” under the terms of the Belfast Agreement “to deliver on rights and equality issues including the critical issue of women’s right to appropriate, modern and compassionate health care.”