Masters of the Bench

Joanna Cherry KC has been MP for Edinburgh South West since May 2015. She is the Justice and Home Affairs Spokesperson for the SNP at Westminster and a member of the influential Joint House of Lords and Commons Committee on Human Rights and the Select Committee for Exiting the EU. She is Vice-Chair of the APPG on the Rule of Law. In 2018 she was one of seven cross-party petitioners in the successful case before the CJEU which established that Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked the ‘Scottish Case’. 

Prior to her election, she had been in practice as an advocate at the Scottish Bar for 20 years. She held the offices of Standing Junior Counsel to the Scottish Government and Advocate Depute and she was one of the first specialist sex crimes prosecutors in the Scottish Crown Office’s pioneering National Sex Crimes Unit. She took silk in 2009 and was ranked by the Legal 500 as one of the leading QCs in Scotland.  She had a varied practice and appeared at the UK Supreme Court on several occasions, including twice on behalf of the Lord Advocate. Since her election to Parliament, she has been a non-practising member of the Faculty Of Advocates. 

Publications She co-authored the textbook “Mental Health and Scots Law in Practice’ (2nd edition). W. Green December 2014 ISBN 9780414017634