News

Long-awaited legislation providing for the exhumation of remains from the site of former mother and baby homes is expected to be published this week. The Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill will provide a legal basis for the excavation, exhumation and re-interment of remain

Proposals to reform Ireland's defamation laws are expected to be discussed by ministers this week. A long-awaited review of the Defamation Act 2009 was completed in 2020 but has yet to be published. In December 2021, justice minister Helen McEntee committed to bringing it to the cabinet "in the new

Judicial education and training in Ireland is being held back by a lack of resources, a new report has warned. The report, co-authored by Dr Rónán Kennedy, Dr Laura Cahillane, Doireann Ansbro and Saoirse Enright, analyses the implementation of the Judicial Council Act 2019 two years af

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating former Post Office lawyers over the Horizon scandal – the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. The SRA has applied to the High Court to obtain documents relating to its investigation into potential solicitor misconduct.

Julian Assange should be taken out of prison and placed under house arrest, according to a United Nations expert. Mr Assange has been held at HMP Belmarsh in south-east London since his eviction from the Ecuadorean embassy in April 2019, where he had spent seven years in order to avoid extradition.

A nearly 140-year-old copy of writings by Friedrich Engels, the lifetime brother-in-arms of Karl Marx, has been returned to a library decades after it went missing. The 1883 collection of Engels' writings went missing in the 1960s after being borrowed from the city library in Mönchengladbach in

Virginia Giuffre could be required to disclose the details of her recent settlement with Prince Andrew in a separate legal battle with Jeffrey Epstein's former lawyer Professor Alan Dershowitz, who denies her accusations of rape. Ms Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with Professor Ders

The Belfast Solicitors Association (BSA) has relocated to new offices just a short walk from the Royal Courts of Justice. The association said its new base at River House, 48-60 High Street, Belfast is an "important development" which will assist its work to improve member services.

William Fry LLP has announced the appointment of Rob McDwyer as a consultant in the firm's energy and natural resources group. A seasoned practitioner with over 21 years' experience, the last 12 of which were exclusively focused on renewable energy projects, Mr McDwyer was previously based in Austra

More than a million audio or video connections have been made for remote and hybrid hearings in the Northern Ireland courts between the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and the end of December 2021. The Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS) said 56 courtrooms are now digi

So-called "sex-for-rent" arrangements should be criminalised in Ireland, justice minister Helen McEntee has said. Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Mrs McEntee said she and housing minister Darragh O'Brien have jointly sought advice from the Attorney General on "how we can go from here to try t

Belfast-based Francis Hanna & Co Solicitors has announced the appointment of three new partners.  Jennifer Young, Karen Connolly and Ruth Flinn, who between them have over 45 years' experience in their specialist areas of law, have each been promoted from associate solicitor to partner.

A change in the law to require court approval of all children's compensation claims in Northern Ireland has been backed by an overwhelming majority of responses to a Department of Justice consultation.

Law Society trainees Enya Levy and Kevin Barrett have been named the overall winners of the National Negotiation Competition. Ms Levy of Arthur Cox and Mr Barrett of McCann FitzGerald triumphed over the Trinity College Dublin team of Lana Bader Eddin and Raman Malashchanka in the final held at Black

A court in Hong Kong relied on a ruling by judges including UK Supreme Court president Lord Reed to jail a member of the territory's parliament. Fernando Cheung, 64, a former Labour Party member of the Hong Kong legislative council (LegCo), was imprisoned for three weeks over a 45-minute anti-Beijin