# Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022, Section 4: Exercise of departmental functions before this Act is passed

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

(1) The absence of Northern Ireland Ministers is not to be treated as having prevented any senior officer of a Northern Ireland department from exercising functions of the department during the period beginning with 28 October 2022 and ending when this Act is passed.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to the exercise of a function if—
(a) proceedings begun, but not finally decided, before this Act is passed involve a challenge to the validity of that exercise of the function, and
(b) the application of that subsection would affect the outcome of the proceedings,
but nothing in this subsection prevents the re-exercise of the function in the same way in reliance on section 3(1).

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/48/section/4 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/northern-ireland-executive-formation-etc-act-2022/section-4
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.