Hugh Southey KC > Matrix Chambers > London, England > Lawyer Profile
Matrix Chambers Offices
GRIFFIN BUILDING, GRAY'S INN
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Hugh Southey KC
Position
Hugh Southey has led at all levels up to and including the Supreme Court as well as in the Privy Council, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. He has led in 26 hearings before the Supreme Court. Hugh has also litigated in a range of jurisdictions including Northern Ireland, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos and the United States. Hugh specialises in public law in a wide range of fields including human rights, regulatory, prison law, inquests, crime, extradition, mental health, terrorism, immigration, discrimination and elections. Hugh litigates public law and human rights arguments both in judicial review proceedings and civil claims. Hugh also appears in criminal appeals and Court of Protection matters. Hugh’s human rights practice has expanded so that it includes a number of cases regarding privacy. Recent key cases including: R (A) v SSJ [2021] UKSC 37; R (Hemmati) v SSHD [2021] AC 143; R (P) v SSHD [2020] AC 185; R(Stott) v SSJ [2020] AC 51.
Career
Solicitor 1991-96; called 1996; Inner Temple; QC 2010; Recorder 2010 to date. Publications of note: Wrote (with Amanda Weston, Jude Bunting and Raj Desai) ‘Judicial Review: A Practical Guide’ (3rd edition); edited (with Lord Justice Fulford) the ‘United Kingdom Human Rights Reports’; wrote (again with Lord Justice Fulford) ‘A Criminal Practitioners Guide to Judicial Review and Case Stated’; recently written a chapter in ‘Human Rights in the Investigation and Prosecution of Crime and Judicial Review: Law and Practice’.
Memberships
ILPA; Association of Prison Lawyers; Administrative Law Bar Association; Prisoners Advice Service; Mental Health Lawyers Association; Human Rights Lawyers Association; Legal Action; Liberty; Justice; Amnesty International.
Education
Harrow Weald Sixth Form College; Imperial College (1987 MEng Chemical Engineering); City of London Polytechnic (1989 CPE and Law Society Finals).
Leisure
Running, skiing, cricket (watching), theatre, music, travel.
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Immigration (including business immigration)
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 1Hugh Southey KC – Matrix Chambers ‘Not afraid to take difficult cases and pursue them to the absolute end.‘
Matrix Chambers fields ‘one of the most efficient and friendly practice teams‘ in immigration, with ‘some of the most brilliant minds in the sphere‘. Practice head Raza Husain KC is especially notable, with significant high-profile involvement in the challenges to the deportation of prospective asylum seekers to Rwanda. SC (Jamaica) v SSHD, a case concerning internal relocation of deportees, was a significant recent win for the set, in which Husain was supported by the ‘hard working‘ and ‘meticulous‘ Eleanor Mitchell. Meanwhile, Hugh Southey KC is renowned for his work in EU law and in areas of overlap with prison law.
London Bar > Inquests and inquiries
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 3Hugh Southey KC – Matrix Chambers ‘A go-to barrister who gets right to the heart of the issues. Formidable with his opponents, and excellent with clients. Someone you definitely want on your side.’
London Bar > Police law (claimant)
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 1Hugh Southey KC – Matrix Chambers ‘Hugh is very creative with his ideas and legal arguments and operates at a high level of legal thought. He is always up to date with the latest developments in domestic law but also drawing on developments internationally.’
Matrix Chambers are an established police law set handling not only complex police cases, but also those in related areas. Phillippa Kaufmann KC is notable for her practice working for victims of crime litigating against the police, having recently represented three victims of the Rochdale grooming gang in a case against Greater Manchester Police. In addition she represented the family of Jermaine Baker in the public inquiry into Baker’s fatal shooting by police in 2015 during an attempt to extract Izzet Eren from custody prior to Eren’s receipt of a 21-year sentence for firearms offences. Hugh Southey KC led a case examining the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s investigation of the death of Julia Smyth in Belfast in 1972, after in 2014 newly-released military logs suggested that the fatal shot may have been fired by the British Army.
London Bar > Administrative law and human rights
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 3Hugh Southey KC –Matrix Chambers ‘A go to barrister who gets right to the heart of the issues. Formidable with his opponents.’