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"The Presumption of Death Bill was passed by the Assembly on 27th April 2009. The Bill, which was introduced into the Assembly last year by Nigel Dodds, Minister for Finance and Personnel, establishes a new procedure allowing the High Court in Northern Ireland to declare that a missing person may be presumed dead.

The Bill addresses the concerns of some of the Families of "the Disappeared" who asked for the law to be changed to allow the deaths of their family members to be registered and death certificates issued. The new legislation is, however, of general application and will be available in relation to a wide range of missing persons in circumstances where it may be presumed that the missing person has died.

The Bill will now be laid before Parliament prior to receiving Royal Assent. The new legislation will come into force later this year."

The Court of Appeal has rejected the challenge from the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) to Article 2 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006. That Article restricts the defence of reasonable chastisement to a summary charge of common assault and precludes the use of the defence in a civil claim for damages where the harm alleged amounts to actual bodily harm.

NICCY had wanted a complete ban on smacking and had claimed that Article 2 breached international human rights standards. However, the Court held that NICCY was not a victim for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, upholding Mr Justice Gillen’s earlier decision in the High Court. The full judgment of the Court of Appeal is available on the Court Service NI website .