This engaging book provides a clear and comprehensive account of the legal system of Northern Ireland.For many years it has been a go-to source for students and practitioners of law, yet is also accessible to readers with no prior legal knowledge.The book begins by explaining how Northern Ireland became a separate legal jurisdiction, what its current constitutional arrangements are, how its legislation is made and what kind of courts and judges it has. It t...

This book explores how the concept of fairness is used in different legal fields to ensure that the laws we live under are just and reasonable.It considers a wide range of topics, such as constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, contract law, tort law, trusts law, family law, employment law, consumer law, immigration law and tax law.Each chapter looks at the part fairness plays in law making in these areas. This is achieved through careful anal...

This Handbook is the latest version of a book that was last published in 2003, and has been completely revised to take account of the innumerable legal developments since then. The book contains 26 chapters on topics ranging across the full spectrum of civil, political, social, economic and environmental rights, with particular emphasis on the right not to be discriminated against. It is currently the most comprehensive and practical publication on the state of human rights in Northern Ire...

This collection of essays is a tribute to Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, who died aged 72 on 1 December 2020 after having retired from the UK Supreme Court just two months earlier.Brian Kerr was appointed as a judge of the High Court of Northern Ireland in 1993. He became the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland in 2004 before being elevated to a peerage and appointed as the last Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in June 2009. Four months later, as Lord Kerr, he moved from the Appellate Commi...

The House of Lords served as the highest court in the UK for over 130 years. In 2009 the new UK Supreme Court took over its judicial functions, closing the doors on one of the most influential legal institutions in the world, and a major chapter in the history of the UK legal system. This volume gathers over 40 leading scholars and practitioners from the UK and beyond to provide a comprehensive history of the House of Lords as a judicial institution, charting its role, working practices, r...

This book examines the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Ireland since its creation in 1924. It sets out the origins of the Court, explains how it operated during the life of the Irish Free State (1922-1937), and considers how it has developed various fields of law under Ireland's 1937 Constitution, especially after the 're-creation' of the Court in 1961. As well as constitutional law, the book looks at the Court's views on the status and legal system of Northern Ireland, administrativ...

Our unwritten Constitution is past its sell-by date. If the Union is to be preserved we must recognise the UK as a federal country along the lines of Canada and Australia, and soon.Such is the argument made by Brice Dickson in this lucid and timely intervention to the debate on Britain’s political future. A federal structure, he reasons, could maximise the benefits of cooperation between semi-autonomous regions while at the same time paying due respect to the nationalisms that exis...

How does the UK Supreme Court approach human rights law? This book presents the first comprehensive overview of the human rights jurisprudence of the Court, analysing the opinions expressed by the current Justices and their predecessors, both judicially and extra-judicially. It criticizes the judges for not developing the common law in a way which supplements the Human Rights Act, for not making imaginative enough use of that Act, and for adopting an attitude to Convention rights which is ...

From the perspective of a number of different social science disciplines, this book explores the ways in which the election of politicians can be made more fair and credible by adopting a human rights approach to elections. It discusses existing international standards for the conduct of elections and presents case studies relating to jurisdictions within Europe, especially those emerging from conflict or from an authoritarian past, which demonstrate how problems occur and can be addressed...

This book provides the first comprehensive account of the role played by the European Convention on Human Rights during the conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968. Brice Dickson studies the effectiveness of the Convention in protecting human rights in a society wracked by terrorism and deep political conflict, detailing the numerous applications lodged at Strasbourg relating to the conflict and considering how they were dealt with by the enforcement bodies. The book illustrates the limitat...

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has functioned without interruption for over a century, yet its intermediate position can obscure the importance of its judgments.This book demonstrates the Court of Appeal’s pivotal role in securing justice, both by correcting lower court decisions and by developing the common law. It examines, in particular, how the Court has applied and developed the rule of law in a post-co...

An engaging introduction to one of the most complex areas of modern life. The book introduces both the main components of the legal system - including judges, juries and law-makers - and key areas of law - contract, civil negligence, and criminal law - to provide the uninitiated with an ideal introduction to law. Key questions to be considered include:How are laws made?How do judges decide cases?What is the exact role of the EU in the legal system?