News

The highest court in Japan has endorsed a ruling granting the country's longest-serving death row inmate a retrial. Iwao Hakamada, 84, has been on death row for more than 50 years after he was convicted of robbing and murdering his boss as well as the man's wife and two children.

Drone owners must register their devices under regulations designed to protect privacy. New rules require all drones fitted with cameras to be logged with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) have taken on new roles overseeing the UK government's commitment to protecting equality and human rights in Northern Ireland after Brexit. The government committed in the Northern Ireland Pr

A former lawyer who used social media to report from Wuhan following the first outbreak of Covid-19 last February has been jailed for four years for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old human rights activist who was also detained in 2019 for speaking in support of anti

A dozen people have been fined after breaking strict Covid-19 rules to play dominoes together in a restaurant. Police said they entered a restaurant in east London and found "a group of 12 people hiding in a dark room".

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the defendants in a personal injuries action must provide further information to the plaintiff about a “bald denial” in their defence. The plaintiff had argued that section 13 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 required the defendant to provide

Judge Colin Daly, the president of the District Court, has been nominated for appointment as a Circuit Court judge. Ministers agreed to elevate Judge Daly to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Gerald Keys in May.

A former deputy secretary general of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) has received a prestigious Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad. Professor William Duncan received the award in the category of "Peace, Reconciliation and Development" in recognitio

An accurate report of inquest proceedings did not breach the deceased's wife's right to privacy, the Press Council of Ireland has ruled. The woman complained in October to the non-statutory Press Ombudsman, the newspaper industry self-regulator, over a report in the Waterford News & Star concern

A small number of virtual prison visits will take place on Christmas Day this year, the Northern Ireland Prison Service has announced. The move follows the suspension of physical prison visits from midnight tonight under the latest Covid-19 restrictions.

This week Benjamin Bestgen looks at the legalities surrounding certain extracurricular activities. See last week's here. Every law student has probably heard of R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19 during their studies. The case concerned a group of men who had occasionally gathered for consensual, but rather s

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has rejected an appeal by nine claimants, who were injured when a man broke into the hotel they were staying in, against a High Court decision that the hotel was not responsible in law for their injuries. Ohoud Al-Najar and eight other members

US President Donald Trump has drawn international condemnation after granting pardons to four security guards who were tried and convicted for their role in the 2007 Nisour Square massacre. Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten, who worked for government contractor Blackwater,

Octopuses are thugs that will punch fish for no reason other than "spite", new research has found. A team led by Eduardo Sampaio, of the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre in Lisbon, found that the cephalopods would punch fish while they were working together to find food, The Times reports.

The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has dismissed a company's application for judicial review of a decision to allow an appeal against an enforcement notice targeting a quarry. Coulters Hill Residents Ltd (CHR) had applied for leave to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Planning Ap