News

A man who started a relationship with the wife of a Chinese soldier has been sentenced to nearly a year in prison. Chinese law provides for penalties of up to three years' imprisonment for knowingly beginning a relationship with the spouse of a serving People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldier.

Holiday park operator Pontins has been ordered by Britain's equality watchdog to stop unlawfully discriminating against Irish Travellers, including by rejecting guests with Irish names and accents. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has served the company with an unlawful act notice aft

Barrister-at-law students at the King's Inns have won the 2024 National Negotiation Competition hosted by the Law Society of Ireland. The team of Catey Clarkson and Shane Molony, coached by Conor Duff BL, secured a second consecutive win for the King's Inns and will now go on to represent Ireland at

Hogan Lovells has appointed Sinéad Meany, former head of legal at the Bank of England, as a regulatory lawyer and head of thought leadership. Ms Meany, who is dual-qualified in England and Wales and in Ireland, joins the firm's financial institutions and insurance sector group in London and w

An English judge faces jail after being convicted of involvement in a scheme to defraud almost £2 million from the legal aid system. Rasib Ghaffar, 54, a barrister and part-time immigration tribunal judge, conspired to inflate legal fees and work claimed for in 2011 and 2012 together with Gazi

A pilot scheme providing free independent legal advice to complainants in serious sexual offence cases in Northern Ireland has been extended for a further year until March 2025. The Department of Justice launched the pilot scheme in April 2021, less than a year before the collapse of the Northern Ir

Ireland has signed the Ljubljana-Hague Convention, the first major treaty in the field of international criminal law since the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention, agreed last year by 68 states, sets out new duties and obligations of states to co-ope

A special Oireachtas committee will be established by April to consider the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said. The assembly published its final report in January, setting out 36 recommendations for a new Irish model to reduce the harm caused by i

Multinational law firm Pinsent Masons has appointed Paul White as a corporate partner in Dublin. Mr White joins from William Fry, whose US offices he previously headed while based in San Francisco.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has named the four films shortlisted for the 2024 ICCL Human Rights Film Award at the Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF). The winning film will be decided by a four-strong jury comprised of writer Una Mullally; Dr Marie-Luce Paris, associate profes

A judgment of the European Court of Human Rights this month found that the Slovak justice system had taken too long to enforce an order for contact between a mother and her son and had breached their rights in terms of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The mother who brought the

Trainee solicitors at the Institute of Professional Legal Studies (IPLS) in Belfast have won the UK Student Mediation Competition 2024.

Roderic O'Gorman, the minister for children, equality, disability, integration and youth, is to address a University of Galway event on the upcoming referendums on the family and care. The event, titled "The Constitutional Referendums on 8th March 2024: A Discussion with Minister Roderic O’Gor

The London Irish Lawyers Association (LILA) narrowly avoided having to cancel a social mobility mooting competition for Irish students after staff at the Royal Courts of Justice generously stepped up to provide a venue.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has expanded with the appointment of Dr Des Hogan and Dale Sunderland as data protection commissioners for a five-year term. The pair will take up their roles from 20 February 2024, the day after incumbent data protection commissioner Helen Dixon steps down to jo