Landmark Chambers

Natasha is ranked as a leading barrister in her specialism of public, administrative and human rights law. She also practices in related areas of environmental and planning law.

Natasha is a public law barrister, with a practice focused on human rights, administrative law, constitutional law and immigration. She has appeared in cases in the Supreme Court, Privy Council and Court of Appeal (led and unled), and has significant advocacy and public inquiry experience.

Natasha is regularly instructed in high-profile and test cases for a range of individual claimants, NGOs, companies, regulatory clients and Government, and is appointed to the Attorney General’s C Panel of Junior Counsel.

She also acts as counsel to the Iraq Fatality Investigations, an Article 2 inquiry chaired by Dame Anne Rafferty into civilian deaths in Iraq involving British forces. She has led the counsel team since 2021, and conducted the questioning of witnesses at the live-streamed public hearings.

Some recent cases include:

• Asylum support: Natasha has acted as junior counsel to a group of asylum seekers in a claim successfully challenging widespread and systemic breaches in the asylum support system: R (SXK, K, NY and AM) v SSHD [2023] EWHC 1876 (Admin). She also acts, as led and sole counsel, to claimants who have been refused or denied asylum support.

• Afghanistan litigation: Natasha is instructed in cross-Government litigation concerning the relocation of Afghan citizens to the UK, including in cases with a national security dimension. Reported cases include: R (KA) v (1) FCDO (2) SSHD (3) SSD [2022] EWHC 2473 (Admin), R (CX1) v (1) SSD (2) SSHD [2024] EWHC 94 (Admin), R (CX1) v (1) SSD (2) SSHD [2024] EWHC 94 (Divisional Court), R (LND1) v (1) SSHD (2) FCDO [2024] EWCA Civ 278.

• Withdrawal Agreement / EU law litigation: Natasha has acted in a number of the leading cases concerning the interpretation of the Withdrawal Agreement and EU law in the wake of Brexit. Reported cases include: Celik v SSHD and (1) Aire Centre (2) Here for Good (3) Independent Monitoring Authority [2023] EWCA Civ 921, Siddiqa v ECO and (1) Independent Monitoring Authority (2) Aire Centre & Here for Good [2024] EWCA Civ 248, (1) Akinsanya (2) Aning-Adjei v SSHD [2024] EHC 469 (Admin), R (Mendes) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 924. Her advice is also regularly sought on various aspects of the Retained EU Law Act.

• Mental health responsibilities: Natasha appeared as junior counsel in the Supreme Court in a case concerning the responsibility for funding after-case service for those detained under the Mental Health Act: R (Worcestershire County Council) v SSHSC [2023] UKSC 31. She is also a contributor to the second edition of ‘NHS Law and Practice’ (LAG, forthcoming).

• Public / Art 2 / Art 3 Inquiries: Natasha is expert in the investigative duties arising under Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, and on jurisdictional issues related to those duties, and regularly advises on and litigates these issues. She acts as counsel (leading the counsel team) to the Iraq Fatalities Investigations. She is also instructed on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the Covid-19 Inquiry.

• Legality of Covid legislation: Natasha has experience acting in constitutional motions from Commonwealth jurisdictions concerning the scope and application of constitutional rights. She recently acted on behalf of the Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago in the landmark linked appeals relating to the constitutionality of the Coronavirus Regulations 2020 and the scope of the legislative savings provisions contained in the Constitution: Suraj & Ors v AG of Trinidad & Tobago [2022] UKPC 26.

• Ombuds / regulatory: Natasha acts as standing council to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), the Ombuds scheme for the higher education, and has advised and acted in a number of judicial review claims against OIA decisions. She has also been instructed in judicial review proceedings against the Charity Commission, following her successful high-profile representation as junior counsel to Camila Batmanghelidjh, the CEO of the children’s charity Kids Company, in the 10-week directors disqualification trial arising out of the charity’s collapse: Re Keeping Kids Company [2021] EWHC 175 (Ch).

Natasha has a strong international dimension to her work. In addition to regular instructions in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Privy Council, she advises (often pro bono) on a broad range of issues under private international, international humanitarian and human rights law. In 2023, she acted as a Trial Observer the Bar Human Rights Committee in the Israeli military courts in the Occupied West Bank. She is a member of the Geoffrey Nice Foundation working group on the role of international judicial mechanisms in post-conflict society and holds an Inner Temple Pegasus Scholarship to work with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Beirut on transitional justice and engagement (cancelled due to COVID-19).

Natasha is a Governor at The Bridge School, a special needs multi-academy trust in Holloway. Prior to joining the Bar, she worked at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Switzerland and for the United Nations Development Programme. She also taught Public and Constitutional Law at the London School of Economics.

She speaks Spanish (including study at the University of Havana), French (conversational) and Levantine Arabic (conversational). She is currently learning Italian.

Spanish (including study at the University of Havana), French (conversational), Levantine Arabic (conversational)

Qualifications

• Bar Professional Training Course (Outstanding), City Law School

• Graduate Diploma in Law (Distinction), City Law School

Scholarships

• Leilo Stampa Prize for Disciplines of History (University of Oxford) (2013)

• Quarrel-Read Prize for Finals (Exeter College, University of Oxford) (2013)

• Simon Pointer Prize for History (Exeter College, University of Oxford) (2012)

Awards

• Pegasus Scholarship (2020)

• Geoffrey Nice Foundation Bursary (2015)

• Inner Temple Major Scholarship (2014)

• Kaplan Advocacy Scholarship (2014)

• Inner Temple GDL Scholarship (2013)

Memberships

Appointed to the Attorney General’s C Panel of Junior Counsel

• Administrative Law and Bar Association

• Bar Human Rights Association

• Commercial Bar Association

• Commonwealth Lawyers Association

• Immigration Law Practitioners Association

Publications

• “Inquests Overseas: common issues and how to get around them”, Travel and Aviation Quartely (issue 4), July 2021, reprinted in Counsel Magazine and the International & Travel Law Blog

• New Law Journal, “Third Sector Protector – Implications of the Kids Company case”, March 2021

• “New requirements for witness statements: PD57AC”, Feb 2021

• Iraq Fatality Investigations, Consolidated Report into the death of Saeed Radhi Shabram Wawi Al-Bazooni, September 2020 (CP 290)

• Iraq Fatality Investigations, Consolidated Report into the death of Tariq Sabri Mahmud, March 2019 (CP 78)

• Free Movement, Eviction of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under European Law, 4 July 2019

• Limits to the Duomatic principle, Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency, October 2017, vol 10 issue 5

• No Limits: the indefinite suspension of a bankrupt’s discharge, Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency, vol 10 issue 5, April 2017

• Validation orders require more than good faith, Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency, October 2016