9(1)The prescribed officer shall as soon as may be make out—N.I.
(a)a list of all parliamentary election petitions;
(b)a list of all local election petitions;
at issue presented to the High Court under Part IX, placing the petitions in the respective lists in the order in which they were presented, and shall keep at his office a copy of each list open to inspection in the prescribed manner.
(2)All petitions shall, so far as conveniently may be, be tried in the order in which they stand in the respective lists.
(3)Two or more candidates may be made respondents to any one petition questioning an election …F1 to any one local election petition and their cases may be tried at the same time, but for the purposes of Part IX and this Schedule such a petition shall be deemed to be a separate petition against each respondent.
(4)Where more petitions than one are presented relating to the same election or to local elections held at the same time for more than one …F2 ward in the same local government electoral area …F2, all those petitions shall be bracketed together in the list and shall be dealt with as one petition, standing, unless the High Court otherwise direct, in the list in the place where the last of them would have stood if it had been the only petition presented.
F21972 NI 13