Case Reports

The Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge brought by a 24-year-old man who argued that the four-year sentence imposed on him for assault was excessive. The Court found that the trial judge had been correct in taking into account the man’s previous convictions for personal violence, and the sen

In Belfast Crown Court, Justice McBride sentenced a 33-year-old man to an indeterminate custodial sentence for the manslaughter of a 29-year-old man in 2015, ordering that he must serve a minimum term of six years before the Parole Commissioners can consider him for release on licence. Mohsin Bhatti

The operator of a shop who offers a Wi-Fi network free of charge to the public is not liable for copyright infringements committed by users of that network but may be required to password-protect its network in order to bring an end to, or prevent, such infringements, the Court of Justice of the Eur

The Social Security Commissioner has held that a working mother of four children was not disentitled to tax credits solely on the basis that her childcare provider was located outside the United Kingdom. A Tribunal of Commissioners stated that regulation 14(2)(d) of the Working Tax Credit Regulation

Gurkha soldiers who complained that their pension entitlements had been less favourable than those of non-Gurkha soldiers in the British Army and those of younger Gurkha soldiers who had more years of service after 1 July 1997 suffered no violation of article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) read

In the high court in Belfast, Justice Keegan dismissed an appeal brought by the mother of five children, three of which had been taken into care after chronic neglect and emotional abuse. The Court found that the Judge who had granted the children's care orders had ultimately achieved the correct ou

In the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Ibrahim and Others v. the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights has held, by 15 votes to two, that there had been no violation of the rights of three applicants (Mr Ibrahim, Mr Mohammed and Mr Omar) under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) (right to

A Darfuri refugee succeeded in his application for an order of certiorari quashing the decision of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, which had affirmed the recommendation of the Refugee Applications Commissioner that he should not be granted refugee status. The High Court found that the Tribunal had fai

In the High Court in Belfast, Justice Maguire refused an application for leave to apply for judicial review of the Government’s “On the Run” scheme. The application for leave was rendered academic due to the outcome of the Hallett Review, and subsequent statements from the Secretary of State f

In the High Court, an asylum-seeker from Pakistan was granted an order of certiorari, quashing the Minister for Justice and Equality’s decision to affirm his deportation order. The Court found that the Minister had failed to take into consideration the likeliness of the applicant facing both tortu

The posting of a hyperlink on a website to works protected by copyright and published without the author’s consent on another website does not constitute a “communication to the public” when the person who posts that link does not seek financial gain and acts without knowledge that those works

A property development company and its guarantor company have failed to prove that they suffered a loss as a result of an omission and alleged encouragement by their former solicitor that resulted in them proceeding with the purchase of land at the height of Northern Ireland’s property boom. In th

The High Court has refused the application of a mother to remove her two children from Ireland, returning them to Australia where they were born and where she is a citizen. Justice O’Hanlon found that the children were habitually resident in Ireland, and that the mother and the father – an Iris

Sitting in Ballymena Court, District Judge Gilpin, dismissed a claim for damages brought by a teenage girl against an MLA, concluding that she had failed to establish liability. The girl sought damages for breach of the statutory tort of harassment under the Protection from Harassment (NI) Order 199

The High Court has refused a man’s application for judicial review in relation to a data protection complaint. In the application, the man sought to challenge the Data Protection Commissioner’s refusal to investigate disputed facts of his data protection complaint via an oral hearing, with the C