Case Reports

Mr Justice Col MacEochaidh has agreed that he be recused from hearing any matter connected with defamation proceedings brought by Declan Ganley against RTE. The plaintiff had raised concerns over an article the judge had written four years before he became a judge which was published in Village maga

Northern Ireland's Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the High Court, which upheld a decision of the Department of Justice to refuse a man compensation pursuant to Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 because the reversal of his conviction was not on the ground of a new or newly

The extensive standardisation of packaging, the future EU-wide prohibition on menthol cigarettes and the special rules for electronic cigarettes, embodied in the EU directive on tobacco products, are lawful, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled The new 2014 directive on tobacco produ

The Supreme Court is to refer questions to the European Court of Justice as to the status of examinations scripts as personal data, following a case in which a man sought an appeal of a decision by the Data Protection Commissioner, in which it determined that such scripts did not constitute personal

The High Court has found that an applicant’s challenge of a decision by the Minister for Justice and Equality, in which she refused to allow him to transfer his sentence from the UK to Ireland, was unarguable, as the Minister was not obliged to accept such transfers, and had not acted unreasonably

The Law Society of Ireland sought and obtained an order for various sanctions following an incident in which a solicitor, Michael O’Sullivan, withheld money from a client, Mr James Nolan, and failed to furnish a Bill of Costs explaining his fee, a breakdown of money to be returned to Mr Nolan, and

The Supreme Court has remitted the balance of a case concerning the termination of a contract to the High Court, following a finding that the Court had correctly determined that the case was not one related to defamation, and therefore did not require a jury trial. However, in a display of latitude

A mentally ill Nigerian asylum seeker who was detained pending deportation and who sought a declaration that a period of her detention was unlawful, in addition to damages, has had her appeal to the UK Supreme Court unanimously dismissed – as the court also declared R (Francis) was wrongly decided

The European Court of Human Rights has held, unanimously, that there was a violation of article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of convicted murderer, James Clifton Murray who complained he was serving a life sentence without a

Northern Ireland's Court of Appeal has upheld a sentence given by the Crown Court in respect of a man who had been found in possession of components of a pipe bomb in January 2014. Although the appellant, Sean Ruddy, had initially denied the offence, eight months prior to his trial on 26 August 2015

The European Court of Human Rights has unanimously held that there was a violation of article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of five applicants who lodged separate complaints about the Russian authorities’ response to demonstrations held by each of

The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision of the High Court to restrain the Director of Public Prosecutions from holding a re-trial of Michael Furlong for the murder of Patrick Connors in April 2011. The trial had commenced on 14th November 2013, but had collapsed dramatically on 18th November, when

The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision in which it was found that the decision of the Minister for Health not to alter the lifetime ban on males who have sex with other males (“MSM”) was irrational and infected with apparent bias. The High Court had also found that the Minister

of the formal investigation procedure and, on the other, the aid schemes had not been notified to the Commission in any way. The undertakings in question therefore could not reasonably believe, despite the delay in the investigation procedure, that the Commission’s doubts no longer existed and th

and/or progression of the disciplinary proceedings. The applicant was accused of a breach of discipline under Regulation 5 of the An Garda Síochána (Discipline) Regulations 2007 and under the Criminal Justice (Treatment of Persons in Custody) Regulations, 1987.