Specifically Northern Irish Legal Resources
maintained by Delia Venables
Note that general UK Legal Resources are kept on the
UK Legal Sites and Resources page.
The links below just cover those legal resources which relate specifically to Northern Ireland.
See also Northern Irish Solicitors
This page was last updated on April 4th.
Northern Ireland Assembly was restored on 8 May 2007
having previously been suspended in 2002. In the interim period, a
Transitional Assembly continued to meet. The site is just getting going again with its new status.
The Northern Ireland Court Service
was established in 1979, by the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978, as a separate civil service in
Northern Ireland. The Court Service reports to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for
Constitutional Affairs. There are selected Judgments and Practice Directions on the site.
Criminal Jutice System Northern Ireland
is a new portal to all the significant criminal justice sites in Northern Ireland.
These are the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Prison Service,
the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Court Service,
the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Northern Ireland Office.
Descriptions of each of these sites, and the links, are given.
Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission is a non-Governmental
Public Body established under the provisions of the Access to Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 and
replaced the Legal Aid Department of the Law Society of Northern Ireland. The Commission is responsible
for administering publicly funded legal services and is accountable to the Secretary of State for
Constitutional Affairs. A key part of the site is a register of all solicitors in Northern Ireland which can
be searched by County or town, and by specialism.
Legal Island provides many links to NI sources,
including an extensive directory of firms. There is also free access to all the Decisions of the Industrial
Tribunals and Fair Employment Tribunals from January 2002.
Law Centre (NI) is a not for profit agency working to advance
social welfare rights in Northern Ireland. The site provides an Encyclopedia of Rights to help Northern
Ireland advisers assist their clients in applying for benefits, appealing decisions, ensuring that they receive
the care they are entitled to and generally safeguarding their rights. Although designed for Northern Ireland, most of
the information is also applicable to the rest of the UK.
(The encyclopedia can be accessed by the general public. However, members of the public cannot ask
the centre of advice directly. They should contact independent advice centres
and CABs for advice. Cases will be referred to the Law Centre where appropriate.)
Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland
(EPPI) involves the electronic cataloguing and full-text digitisation of some 13,700 British Parliamentary papers
(containing around 365,000 pages) from the University of Southampton's Ford Collection of
Official Publications.
The parliamentary Blue Books contain masses of information on Ireland and its relations with Britain
in this period: from massive social inquiries and census enumerations, through reports on economic,
educational and scientific subjects, cultural and linguistic institutions and political and military
developments, to transcripts of semi-literate emigrant letters.
Phase 1 is now available (launched on 19th February) and provides a comprehensive searchable database of
Parliamentary Papers relating to Ireland 1801-1922, with bibliographic information,
Library of Congress subject descriptors and, for a significant selection of items, abstracts of contents.
Phase 2, the full text digitisation of the records identified in Phase 1, will be complete by 2005.
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