CHAMBERS

Dr Lucia Brieskova

(Member)

Guernica 37

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Called: 2019

Qualified to accept Public Access instructions

Introduction

Lucia is currently on secondment with the Crown Prosecution Service International Justice and Organised Crime Division and is unable to take instructions through chambers.

She will be returning to private practice at Guernica 37 at the beginning of September 2023.

Lucia is a member of the Bar of England and Wales. She joined Chambers as a barrister in June 2021, having previously worked in Chambers as an associate since Chambers’ inception. In addition to being a barrister Lucia is teaching in Oxford in the areas of international and EU law and policy.

She accepts instructions in most Chambers’ practice areas, at domestic and international level. Her domestic practice consists of criminal law, extradition and regulatory law. She has prosecuted and defended in the Magistrates’ and Crown Courts and is on the CPS General list (Level 1). She has acted for Requested Persons in extradition matters at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and the High Court and regularly appears before Regulatory panels.

In her international practice, Lucia accepts instructions in the areas of international criminal law, international humanitarian law, human rights, and EU law. Lucia’s PhD, focused on the intersection of human rights, business and migration, enables her to carry out work in this niche and growing area of law.

Current work

Apart from her domestic practice, since joining Chambers, Lucia has been involved in several international high-profile matters, amongst others, the current situation in Yemen and cases pending before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague.

Current situation in Yemen

Lucia contributed to the drafting of a communication submitted to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague contending that an investigation should be commenced into the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Yemen. In this communication, it was argued that the ICC has jurisdiction over the existing situation in Yemen, which is a non-Party to the Rome Statue of the ICC, utilising the previous similar successful arguments regarding the ICC jurisdiction over the crimes with cross-border elements deployed by Guernica 37 in the case of Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Lucia contributed to the Rohingya ICC communication in her previous role as an associate.

Lucia also took charge in drafting a recent submission to the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division of the Metropolitan Police (SO15), which contended that an investigation regarding the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Yemen should be opened in England against specified individuals relying on the principle of the universal jurisdiction.

Kosovo Specialist Chambers

Lucia has been working on various cases Chambers has been instructed in before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. For instance, she participated in reviewing the evidence and in considering issues such as the admissibility of the evidence and the format of the evidence being presented.

Previous experience

Prior to joining Chambers Lucia completed 18 months criminal law pupillage in another leading London based set.

During her pupillage Lucia practised in the areas of general crime, youth court work, and extradition. She defended and prosecuted regularly in the Magistrates' Courts and was developing a Crown Court practice. Her defence and prosecution practice extended from minor offences to serious and complex offences and issues including burglary, robbery, drug dealing and modern slavery. Lucia appeared in several hearings relating to extradition proceedings, and contributed, in several posts, to the Extradition Hub on CrimeLine. She also worked on cases with international law elements such as human trafficking and complaints brought before the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Prior to her pupillage, Lucia gained a wide variety of legal work experience at national and international level, in addition to previously working as an associate at Guernica 37 Chambers.

Whilst doing her PhD in Oxford, she took up a position as an assistant lawyer to the legal adviser of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in France, where she worked on many pressing human rights and international law-related issues such as the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the accession of the European Union to the European Convention of Human Rights, and foreign terrorist fighters.

Previously, Lucia worked at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg in Chambers of Advocate General Juliane Kokott and Judge Daniel Svaby, and as a senior paralegal in the crime team in a firm of solicitors in Oxford, where she was running her own Crown Court caseload, and represented clients in the police station.