Case archive
High Court: Minister must reconsider deportation order in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 ECHR
In the High Court, an asylum-seeker from Pakistan was granted an order of certiorari, quashing the Minister for Justice and Equality’s decision to affirm his deportation order. The Court found that the Minister had failed to take into consideration the likeliness of the applicant facing both torture and the death penalty upon his return to Pakistan, and therefore had to reconsider the application in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 ECHR.
9 September 2016
Luxembourg: hyperlinking to copyrighted material not necessarily a 'communication to the public'
The posting of a hyperlink on a website to works protected by copyright and published without the author’s consent on another website does not constitute a “communication to the public” when the person who posts that link does not seek financial gain and acts without knowledge that those works have been published illegally, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled.
9 September 2016
Solicitor’s omission in £5.5m conveyance was breach of contract but did not cause company’s loss
A property development company and its guarantor company have failed to prove that they suffered a loss as a result of an omission and alleged encouragement by their former solicitor that resulted in them proceeding with the purchase of land at the height of Northern Ireland’s property boom. In the High Court,Justice Deeny was satisfied that the transaction would have proceeded notwithstanding the solicitor’s omission, but that the solicitor’s breach of contract entitled them to nominal damages.
8 September 2016
High Court: Mother’s application to return to Australia with children refused
The High Court has refused the application of a mother to remove her two children from Ireland, returning them to Australia where they were born and where she is a citizen. Justice O’Hanlon found that the children were habitually resident in Ireland, and that the mother and the father – an Irish citizen – had jointly consented to the move.
7 September 2016
Girl connected with anti-social behaviour due to MLA’s Facebook posts has damages claim dismissed
Sitting in Ballymena Court, District Judge Gilpin, dismissed a claim for damages brought by a teenage girl against an MLA, concluding that she had failed to establish liability. The girl sought damages for breach of the statutory tort of harassment under the Protection from Harassment (NI) Order 1997, and for the Misuse of Private Information in relation to references made to her by the MLA on Facebook.
6 September 2016
High Court: Individuals are not entitled to an oral hearing in complaints to the Data Protection Commissioner
The High Court has refused a man’s application for judicial review in relation to a data protection complaint. In the application, the man sought to challenge the Data Protection Commissioner’s refusal to investigate disputed facts of his data protection complaint via an oral hearing, with the Court finding that the Commissioner was not empowered to do so under the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003.
5 September 2016
NI: Solicitor entitled to continue with defamation claim against the PSNI
The High Court in Belfast has refused an application by the Chief Constable of the PSNI to stay proceedings brought by a solicitor as an abuse of process on the basis that there has been “no real and substantial tort”.
2 September 2016
High Court: AIB entitled to recover more than €6m from company secretary
The High Court has refused to remit a summary judgment of more than €6 million to plenary hearing, because the secretary of the company against which the judgment was made could not prove Allied Irish Bank (AIB) had been negligent in failing to provide him with independent legal advice when he signed a guarantee for the full indebtedness of his company.
1 September 2016
Former hotelier awarded £50,000 in damages for defamatory comments published by the Sunday World
The High Court in Belfast has awarded compensation of £50,000 to a former hotelier after defamatory comments were published in the Sunday World newspaper.
31 August 2016
Dairy farmer had no defence in withholding payment for specialist equipment
The High Court has refused a dairy farmer’s application for an order setting aside a judgment against him of more than €153,000, on the basis that no reasonable defence had been offered.
30 August 2016
Driver refused application for judicial review in case of driving without insurance
A man who argued that the district judge who had convicted him of driving without insurance had misinterpreted section 56 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 has had his application for judicial review dismissed in the High Court.
29 August 2016
State authority’s decision to award €1.2m public contract had been made in line with fair procedures
A local development company in Connemara, County Galway, failed in a High Court challenge to the decision by a state body to award the entirety of a public contract to another applicant – a development programme that in previous years had been divided into two separate contracts.
26 August 2016
Tipperary farmer loses nuisance claim against nearby mining company
The High Court has dismissed a Tipperary farmer's claim that the mining activities of a nearby company had caused settlement to the surface of some of his 18-acre farmland and damage to adjacent buildings.
25 August 2016
Wicklow man to be extradited to the US for facilitating the distribution of narcotics on an anonymous online black market
The High Court has ordered the extradition of a 27-year-old man from Wicklow to the United States, where he is wanted for various offences in connection to his alleged employment as an administrator for an anonymous online marketplace renowned for providing narcotics and weaponry, which was consequently the subject of an FBI investigation.
24 August 2016
Property developer successfully challenges planning decision regarding €75m South Dublin housing scheme
In an extensive and detailed judgment in the High Court, a Council’s decision to reject the planning application for a major housing scheme in South Dublin has been quashed.
23 August 2016