Remote Hearings

Criminal jury trials are set to resume in the Central Criminal Court later this month and in Circuit Courts by late August as the courts aim to increase the number of hearings following the COVID-19 crisis, Chief Justice Frank Clarke has announced. In a statement issued over the weekend, Ireland's t

Northern Ireland's Planning Appeals Commission (PAC) is set to hold its first virtual pilot hearing next week. The landmark hearing will take place on Tuesday 30 June, closely following the first virtual planning hearing in Scotland earlier this week.

Tom O'Malley, a law lecturer and barrister with expertise in criminal law, sentencing, criminal procedure and constitutional law, looks at an interesting English experiment in virtual jury trials. The resumption of jury trials for serious criminal offences is probably the biggest difficulty facing t

The Labour Court has said it will continue to rely on a "combination of physical courtrooms and virtual courtrooms" in the medium term. The court began remotely hearing appeals and referrals to the court at the start of June and expects to re-open some physical courtrooms in July.

The vast majority of lawyers involved in remote court hearings during the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales are satisfied with their experience, a major survey has found. Having surveyed nearly 900 lawyers on the impact of COVID-19 on the civil justice system for the Civil Justice Council (CJC)

The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan, has warned against the "misuse" of remote courts technology following its use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sir Declan questioned the suitability of remote hearings in some areas of the law in recorded remarks for members of the Commonwealth Lawyers' Associ

Concerns that parents could secretly record remote childcare hearings "must be weighed against the importance of cases continuing to be heard", a leading family lawyer has said. Speaking to Irish Legal News, solicitor Keith Walsh said he accepted that virtual hearings in the District Court "present

Northern Ireland's Planning Appeals Commission (PAC) has announced plans to pilot remote hearings in selected cases within the next four to six weeks. The announcement follows repeated calls from lawyers and the construction industry for Northern Ireland's planning system to catch up with the rest o

Northern Ireland's planning system is "lagging badly" behind the rest of the UK in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic by failing to introduce remote hearings, construction industry groups have said. In a joint letter to the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC), nine industry groups expressed "grave

A drug trafficker has been sentenced to death in Singapore in a remote court hearing held using Zoom. Malaysian national Punithan Genasan, 37, was convicted on Friday of complicity in heroin trafficking in 2011.

Physical court sittings have been limited to a maximum of two hours per day while the Courts Service seeks clarification on health advice given to the Oireachtas. The special committee on the COVID-19 response yesterday heard that spending two hours in an enclosed setting with someone who later deve

An interim care order for an unaccompanied child victim of trafficking has been granted in the first-ever remote hearing of a District Court case. The Child Care Law Reporting Project (CCLRP) attended the remote Dublin District Court hearing and has published a report of proceedings.

A number of undefended divorces are set to be heard via remote hearings under a new pilot in Belfast. The announcement from the Recorder of Belfast, Judge David McFarland, comes less than a week after the first divorces were granted in remote hearings south of the border.

The granting of divorces in remote court hearings for the first time in Irish legal history has been welcomed as a "quantum leap from the 19th to the 21st century for courts, lawyers, judges and court users". Family lawyer Keith Walsh acted in a number of divorce cases heard remotely in Dublin Circu

Concerns have been raised by the Law Society of Ireland about the video-conferencing technology used to facilitate remote court hearings in Ireland. According to the Law Society Gazette, the Society's nominees on courts user groups have concerns about "the significant limitations of the technologica