News

Northern Ireland's new stand-alone offence of domestic abuse has come into force. The new offence under the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021, which came into force yesterday, criminalises patterns of non-physical abusive behaviour as well as physical abuse.

The Calabrian mafia has allegedly been converting cocaine into “coal” to avoid alerting the authorities when importing the product from Colombia. The supposed scheme emerged after 65 people were arrested, including two police officers.

Global law firm Fieldfisher has announced the appointment of 14 new senior associates in its Dublin office. Aine Grogan, Amy McMahon, Ciara Hanratty, Aoife Stack, Eoin Ó Cuilleanáin and James Roche have been named as senior associates in the public and regulatory team.

Solicitor Judith Fitzgerald has been appointed to the board of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). Following six other appointments earlier this month, the WRC board now has a full complement of eight ordinary members.

Coleraine firm Macaulay Wray Solicitors has announced the promotion of John McCaughan to partner in the firm.

Elena Vassileva, senior associate at Ronan Daly Jermyn, examines new EU proposals for the regulation of artificial intelligence. Our world is increasingly technology centric, offering unlimited opportunities with just the click of a button. As a result, artificial intelligence (AI), which aims to cr

Stop and search powers are being disproportionately used in Northern Ireland against people from ethnic minority communities and on children, new figures reveal. A total of 25,503 people were stopped and searched by PSNI officers in 2021, according to the latest statistics, with just six per cent of

Long-awaited legislation providing for the exhumation of remains from the site of former mother and baby homes is expected to be published this week. The Certain Institutional Burials (Authorised Interventions) Bill will provide a legal basis for the excavation, exhumation and re-interment of remain

Proposals to reform Ireland's defamation laws are expected to be discussed by ministers this week. A long-awaited review of the Defamation Act 2009 was completed in 2020 but has yet to be published. In December 2021, justice minister Helen McEntee committed to bringing it to the cabinet "in the new

Judicial education and training in Ireland is being held back by a lack of resources, a new report has warned. The report, co-authored by Dr Rónán Kennedy, Dr Laura Cahillane, Doireann Ansbro and Saoirse Enright, analyses the implementation of the Judicial Council Act 2019 two years af

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating former Post Office lawyers over the Horizon scandal – the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. The SRA has applied to the High Court to obtain documents relating to its investigation into potential solicitor misconduct.

Julian Assange should be taken out of prison and placed under house arrest, according to a United Nations expert. Mr Assange has been held at HMP Belmarsh in south-east London since his eviction from the Ecuadorean embassy in April 2019, where he had spent seven years in order to avoid extradition.

A nearly 140-year-old copy of writings by Friedrich Engels, the lifetime brother-in-arms of Karl Marx, has been returned to a library decades after it went missing. The 1883 collection of Engels' writings went missing in the 1960s after being borrowed from the city library in Mönchengladbach in

Virginia Giuffre could be required to disclose the details of her recent settlement with Prince Andrew in a separate legal battle with Jeffrey Epstein's former lawyer Professor Alan Dershowitz, who denies her accusations of rape. Ms Giuffre alleges that she was forced to have sex with Professor Ders

The Belfast Solicitors Association (BSA) has relocated to new offices just a short walk from the Royal Courts of Justice. The association said its new base at River House, 48-60 High Street, Belfast is an "important development" which will assist its work to improve member services.