Shami Chakrabarti

Sharmishta Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, (born 16 June 1969) is a British politician, barrister, and human rights activist.

After graduating with an LLB degree in 1991, Chakrabarti was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1994.

In 1996, she started working as a barrister for the Home Office.

She studied law at the London School of Economics, at one point acting as a research assistant to Leonard Leigh, who wrote a paper on the British approach to terrorism and extradition; the paper was finally published in 1997.

As director, she campaigned against what the pressure group saw as the "excessive" anti-terrorist measures that followed the September 11 attacks in the United States, such as the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA).

The organisation is a prominent opponent of recent counter-terrorism legislation.

Chakrabarti is a frequent contributor to BBC Radio and TV and various newspapers on the topic of human rights and civil liberties.

The Observer wrote that she puts in "seemingly endless appearances on Question Time and the rolling news bulletins".

She was also described by David Aaronovitch in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years".

A member of the Labour Party, she served as the director of Liberty, a major advocacy group which promotes civil liberties and human rights, from 2003 to 2016.

After working as in-house counsel, Chakrabarti was appointed director of Liberty in 2003.

In December 2005, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme ran a poll of listeners to establish "who runs Britain."

After many hours of debate, Today placed Chakrabarti on the shortlist of ten people "who may run Britain."

She was shortlisted in the Channel 4 Political Awards 2006 for the "Most Inspiring Political Figure" award.

It was voted for by the public and she came second to Jamie Oliver, above Tony Blair, David Cameron, George Galloway and Bob Geldof.

In 2007, she broadcast a Lent talk for BBC Radio 4.

In June 2008, Andy Burnham, the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, made what Chakrabarti claimed were "insinuations" in an interview in Progress magazine at Shadow Home Secretary David Davis's resignation over the 42-day detention for terror suspects.

Davis, a Conservative MP, was said by Burnham to have had "late-night, hand-wringing, heart-melting phone calls with Shami Chakrabarti."

Chakrabarti received an apology from Burnham for his "innuendo and attempted character assassination".

In 2009, Shami Chakrabarti called Prevent the "biggest spying operation in Britain in modern times".

On 18 April 2009, it was reported in The Times and The Daily Telegraph that police officers who raided the parliamentary office of the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green and arrested him as part of an inquiry into the leaking of Home Office documents had searched through e-mails and computer documents going back a number of years, using Chakrabarti's name as one of the keywords.

The Times reported her as saying that she believed the action of Scotland Yard's anti-terror squad "raises very serious questions about just how politicised, even McCarthyite, this operation was."

She was one of the panel members of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards throughout 2011 and 2012.

Between 2014 and 2017, she served as Chancellor of the University of Essex.

Phil Shiner is a British former human rights solicitor and was Head of Strategic Litigation at Public Interest Lawyers (International) from 2014 until the firm's closure in August 2016, when he was struck off the roll of solicitors in England and Wales over misconduct relating to false abuse claims against British troops.

Shiner's disgrace resulted in criticism by former army officers of Chakrabarti and her support for Shiner.

Johnny Mercer MP, a retired Army captain, chided Chakrabarti for her "almost child-like understanding of military operations" and for "trying to retrospectively apply European Human Rights Law to the battlefield".

From 2016 to 2020, she served as Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales.

Chakrabarti was born in the London Borough of Harrow, and studied law at the London School of Economics.

After graduating, she was called to the Bar and then worked as an in-house legal counsel for the Home Office.

When she was the director of Liberty, she campaigned against what Liberty considered "excessive" anti-terror legislation.

In this role, she frequently contributed to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers, and was described in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years".

In August 2016, Chakrabarti was made a life peer in the Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.

Chakrabarti was born to Bengali Indian parents in the suburb of Kenton in the London Borough of Harrow.

Her father, a bookkeeper, has been cited by Chakrabarti as an influence on her gaining an interest in civil liberties.

She attended Bentley Wood High School, a girls' comprehensive school, then Harrow Weald Sixth Form College.

She was a member of the SDP.

Both her parents were educated in Roman Catholic schools in Calcutta, while she herself attended a Baptist Sunday school as a child.

Chakrabarti stepped down as the director of Liberty on 31 March 2016.

Martha Spurrier was announced as her successor.