Coronavirus

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

Immigration and international protection permissions have been temporarily extended for a further two months. This is the sixth extension announced by Justice Minister Helen McEntee since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the third described as "final".

Physical visits to Irish prisons will be suspended from midnight tomorrow under the latest Covid-19 restrictions. All physical visits booked after 24 December 2020 have now been cancelled and families have been urged to rebook a video visit.

There should be an expansion in the use of remote and "hybrid" hearings to avoid the backlog in civil cases growing next year, commercial and insurance risk law specialist BLM has said. The Courts Service announced earlier this month that the backlog in the summons scheduling waiting list has been r

Businesses in Northern Ireland have been protected from the threat of eviction for non-payment of rent for a further three months. Finance Minister Conor Murphy has extended emergency provisions for commercial tenants in the Coronavirus Act 2020 until 31 March 2021.

The High Court has granted an application by Norwegian Air to appoint an examiner over six companies in the Norwegian Group. The court noted that the struggling company had met serious challenges in recent times, with the airline only having six planes in use due to the coronavirus pandemic. The cou

Jury trials and other courts and tribunals hearings will continue to be held following the imposition of new Covid-19 restrictions, Justice Minister Naomi Long has said. The Northern Ireland Executive has announced a significant tightening of public health restrictions for a six-week period starting

The Workplace Relations Commission has launched a public consultation on the drafting of a new code of practice on the "right to disconnect". The code will set out guidance for employees and employers with regard to best practice and approaches to employee disengagement outside normal working hours.

Remote hearings are not delivering effective access to justice in Northern Ireland's family courts, research by an Ulster University academic suggests. The new report by Professor Gráinne McKeever on the impact of Covid-19 on the family courts, based on interviews with practitioners and litig

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether airlines have breached consumers’ legal rights by failing to offer cash refunds for flights they could not lawfully take. The move comes as part of ongoing work by the CMA in relation to holiday refunds during the corona

Credit unions can hold their annual general meetings online in whole or in part under new legislation approved by the Oireachtas. The Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 will allow credit unions to hold their AGMs in spite of Covid-19 restrictions.

Legal rights group FLAC has welcomed the introduction of new social welfare regulations addressing some of their concerns and recommendations in relation to the Covid Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP). The new regulations state that a person will not be required to seek employment outside that occ

A major Covid-related backlog in the summons scheduling waiting list has been reduced to 95,000 from around 122,000 in mid-October, the Courts Service of Ireland has said. The backlog arose from the need to reduce the numbers in court following the introduction of Covid-19 restrictions in March. The

Chief Justice Frank Clarke has reportedly refused to accept a €5,200 pay rise approved by government ministers. Ministers decided this week to push ahead with a two per cent pay increase for judges across the board.

Women in-house lawyers are more concerned than their male counterparts about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote working on their salaries, a new survey reveals. A survey of over 100 in-house counsel by Mason Hayes & Curran LLP found that 41 per cent of women are worried about the eff