The North'S two Sinn Fein Ministers will today challenge the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, in Belfast High Court over his ban on their attending North-South Ministerial Council meetings.
The Education Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, and the Health Minister, Ms Bairbre de Brun, are currently not able to attend cross-Border ministerial meetings. Mr Trimble banned them in an effort to get republican paramilitaries to move on arms decommissioning.
It is not known how long the court case will take or when the verdict will be known.
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, has come under pressure from republicans to take the first step in moving the Northern Ireland peace process forward. In a statement timed to coincide with the end of Mr Bill Clinton's last visit to Ireland and Britain as US President, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, claimed the British government needed to address republican concerns on policing and demilitarisation.
Mr Adams, who met Mr Blair and Mr Clinton separately at Stormont on Wednesday, repeated his call for Mr Blair to take responsibility for the flagging peace process.
"If the impasse is to be broken, then it is the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, who has the power and holds the key to progress on all of these matters.
"President Clinton's visit certainly helped to bring a renewed focus on this crisis. The legacy of his last visit to Ireland will be determined by how quickly Tony Blair moves to implement the deal struck in May."
However, anti-agreement Ulster Unionists have warned Mr Trimble that they were prepared to put him under further pressure in the new year when the party's ruling council reconvenes to review the success of its sanctions against Sinn Fein.
The party's Lagan Valley MP, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, yesterday said time was running out for the IRA to secure Sinn Fein's place on the Stormont Executive.
"We are fast approaching Christmas and the IRA still has not shifted. The talks with President Clinton do not seem to have moved the issue any further forward.
"The fact remains that we need to see rapid progress on their co-operation with the independent commission, agreement on the timescale and modalities of decommissioning, and actual decommissioning.
"The clock is certainly ticking in terms of Sinn Fein's continued participation in this Executive," Mr Donaldson added.