Conor Courtney

A tribunal has found against the Department of Finance for twice refusing to backdate an appellant’s Disabled Person's Allowance. The tribunal found that the Department's repeated and categorical refusal was an unfair misstatement of the law. The Northern Ireland Valuation Tribunal (NIVT) reli

Northern Ireland's Crown Court has ruled that a "self-centred" murderer with 51 prior convictions will not be eligible for parole for at least 21 years. The court examined the violence of the murder, and the state of the defendant, determining that both were aggravating factors, which warranted exte

An asylum seeker who feared being kidnapped and chained has been granted a fresh decision by Northern Ireland's High Court after an "unfair" and "irrelevant" ruling by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The applicant, a citizen of Somalia, successfully challenged the Home Office decisio

Northern Ireland's High Court has denied leave for judicial review to an applicant who believed that being forced to rely on in-patient mental health treatments violated his rights under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court held that systems in place to provide ment

Northern Ireland's High Court has ruled in favour of a convicted arsonist freed more than 33 years ago who submitted that a law preventing convictions of more than 30 months' imprisonment from ever becoming spent breaches his human rights. The court was persuaded to make a declaration that Article 6

The High Court granted an order of certiorari to quash planning permission for a petrol station in Belfast, ordering the applicant to pay one third of the legal costs on top of the £325,000 building costs incurred to date. The court was not swayed by the arguments of the notice party, who "has

The High Court has determined that the Secretary of State failed in his statutory duty to provide abortion services ‘expeditiously’ following a 19-month delay; however, a breach of ECHR Art 8 was not established. In these proceedings, brought partly on behalf of Amnesty International and

Northern Ireland's High Court has directed that an investigation into the 1998 Omagh bombing that is compliant with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights should be carried out following a judicial review. The application for judicial review was brought in 2013 by Michael Gallagher, th

Northern Ireland's High Court has rejected an application to stay civil claims against an alleged Provisional IRA member and informer until after a one-million-page report into criminal activity is published, ruling that “stagnation is not an option”. The interlocutory application querie

Northern Ireland's High Court has dismissed an application to strip away a father’s parental responsibility towards his daughter despite evidence of domestic and sexual abuse towards her mother in the child's presence. An application was brought by the child, RE’s, mother under Article 7

The High Court has dismissed an application to hold police responsible for dismantling a dangerous bonfire, finding that the threat of “widespread unrest” outweighed the effects of the anti-social and unlawful behaviour. The emergency application was brought by AB, who lives in the vicin

The High Court has awarded both personal damages and repayment to the company in an unfair prejudice claim against a Coleraine company which voted to oust a founding shareholder. The petitioner, Mr Fergus Shaw, sought relief under section 994 of the Companies Act 2006 on the grounds that the affairs

The High Court has dismissed all seven headings of a land conveyance counterclaim, deeming it to be “clearly an abuse of process”. The plaintiffs, solicitor Andrea McIlroy-Rose and her late father John McIlroy, issued proceedings in 2016 seeking injunctive relief and damages for an alleg