Doughty Street Chambers

Immigration

Alasdair Mackenzie is an experienced leading junior who specialises in immigration and asylum law and practices generally in public law.

Alasdair is regularly instructed as sole or leading counsel in appeals to the Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal and in judicial reviews in both the High Court and Upper Tribunal.  He appears frequently before the Upper Tribunal and First-Tier Tribunal in all areas of immigration law, including refugee, human rights, family, EEA, student, points-based system, bail and deportation cases.  He also appears in judicial reviews of trafficking decisions and age assessments.

Year of call: 2004; Gray’s Inn.

Before joining Doughty Street from pupillage in 2005, Alasdair spent many years as a campaigner and advice worker on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.  He was among the founders of the charity Asylum Aid, of which he was Co-ordinator from 1990 to 2002.  He spent some years as an executive committee member of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, of which he remains an active member, and is a former Chair of the Asylum Rights Campaign and of the Refugee Legal Group.

He has acted as an expert consultant to the Immigration Services Commissioner, the regulator of immigration advisers.  Alasdair has written or contributed to a number of significant reports and publications on asylum and immigration issues.

Immigration Law Practitioners' Association

The Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association

Human Rights Lawyers Association

Liberty

Justice

Winchester College; Oxford University (1989, BA, modern languages); London Metropolitan University (2003, PgDL); College of Law (2004, BVC).