News

Hong Kong is becoming a totalitarian state, Lord Sumption has said. The former UK Supreme Court justice, who last week resigned from the territory's Court of Final Appeal amid fears of Beijing's influence, said that the rule of law has been “profoundly compromised” there.

Rishi Sunak has said he is prepared to lead the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) if re-elected as prime minister following next month's general election. Mr Sunak, whose Conservative Party is well behind the Labour Party in opinion polls and in danger of slipping into third place

A children's book about school book bans has been banned by schools in Florida. Ban This Book, written by Alan Gratz and published in 2017, is about a young girl who starts a secret banned book club in her school.

A disability discrimination claim brought by a person with a serious visual impairment against a healthcare service which insisted on communicating appointment dates through letters has been settled. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission provided legal assistance to the person in respect of

Major social media companies including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok may be failing to respect international human rights standards by removing abortion-related content on their platforms, according to Amnesty International. A new Amnesty report reveals how, since the 2022 US Supreme Court decision

Nearly £5 million of cash and assets were seized from organised crime groups in Northern Ireland last year, according to new figures. The 2022/23 annual report of the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) reveals that a total of £4.8 million was seized from criminals involved in drug traffic

Dozens of past presidents of Queen's University Belfast Law Society reunited at a special event last week.

Two young Iraqi women can claim asylum in the Netherlands on the basis that they have become "westernised" during their stay in the country and could be persecuted if forced to return to Iraq, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled. The two women are sisters of Iraqi nationality

Ireland ranks among the highest in Europe for public perceptions of judicial independence, a new EU report has highlighted. The 2024 EU Justice Scoreboard shows that the public's perception of judicial independence has improved across the continent, including in countries that had experienced system

An ice cream chain is being taken to court by a disgruntled customer over its pistachio ice cream — which contains no pistachios. New York ice cream aficionado Jenna Marie Duncan has been granted permission to bring her false advertising case against Cold Stone Creamery, a well-known brand whi

A man who was wrongfully arrested and detained in the US based on facial recognition technology (FRT) has called on Helen McEntee not to introduce the technology into Irish policing. Robert Williams spoke at an event hosted by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) last week in Dublin, alongsi

Carson McDowell has continued its support for the Belfast School of Art (BSoA) annual degree show in the art school's 175th anniversary.

Benedict Taaffe has named by Matheson as the winner of the 2024 Tim Scanlon Corporate Law Bursary. Now in its third year, the annual bursary honours the memory of late Matheson partner Tim Scanlon.

Judges failed subpostmasters convicted in the Horizon scandal, according to a former director of public prosecutions of England and Wales. Sir David Calvert-Smith, 79, who reviewed scores of appeals for the Post Office, said that in at least 12 convictions, judges ought to have “probed”

Belfast-based Paschal O'Hare Solicitors has expanded its newly-established hearing loss department with the appointment of legal professional Ella McConville. Ms McConville graduated from Queen's University Belfast with an undergraduate degree in law in 2023 and aspires to complete a postgraduate de