Doughty Street Chambers

Edward Fitzgerald KC was named Human Rights and Public Law Silk of the Year in the Chambers Bar Awards 2013, Legal Aid Lawyer of the year in 2009, and Silk of the Year award 2005. In 1998 he was given the Times Justice Human Rights Award. In 2008 he was awarded the CBE for services to human rights. He specialises in criminal law, public law, judicial review and international human rights law.

Edward is ranked in the highest Bands of each of his fields in the Chambers and Partners 2026 tables. He is Band 1 in Administration and Public Law and International Human Rights Law. He is listed as a ‘star individual’ in the areas of Civil Liberties & Human Rights, Crime and Extradition in 2026.

Year of Call: 1978; resides Inner Temple; KC 1995.

Edward is regularly called upon to handle the most significant, highly publicised cases. He appears routinely before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court; the Privy Council and the ECtHR. He is highly regarded for his work on behalf of vulnerable individuals.

Edward has represented a number of high-profile, public figures including Silvio Berlusconi in the European Court of Human Rights, Boris Berezovsky and Akmed Zakaev of Chechnya and Ejup Ganic of Bosnia in their respective fights against extradition to Russia and Serbia. Edward Fitzgerald KC represented Julian Assange in his fight against extradition proceedings in the Magistrates’ court and the High Court, culminating in the grant of permission to appeal, which prompted the US to agree a deal whereby Mr Assange plead guilty to a single offence and was set free. He has successfully represented a number of other clients fighting extradition to the US, including Gary McKinnon (2012), Lauri Love (2018), Robert McDaid (July 2020) and Corey De Rose (2022),

He recently defeated an extradition request from South Korea to Albania on behalf of Stephan Morgenstern, together with Ledi Bianku of chambers.

He successfully represented Kaine Wright in resisting extradition to Japan, one the first requests from that jurisdiction.

He is currently engaged in a number of extraditions to India, representing high-profile Indian businessmen such as Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

He has also recently obtained extradition rulings against the United States in the Cayman Islands in the case of INM (March 2020) and the British Virgin Islands in the case of Harrigan & Hodge (2018) to refuse extradition to the United States. He also successfully represented Gabriel Popoviciu in his fight against extradition to Romania, on the basis that the Judge who convicted him was not independent.

Edward represented Mrs Elgizouli in her challenge to the Home Secretary in 2020 to ensure that he did not provide mutual assistance in respect of her son to the United States without a death penalty assurance from the US.

In the past, Edward has conducted many successful criminal appeals against miscarriages of justice. He also secured a series of important rulings from the Privy Council striking down the mandatory death penalty in Caribbean jurisdictions, such as St Lucia, Belize, St Kitts and the Bahamas, in the cases of Hughes, Reyes, Fox and Bowe. He also recently represented Mr Chandler in his appeal to the Privy Council against the mandatory death penalty in Trinidad.

He also represented the appellants in recent successful conviction appeals to the Privy Council from the Caribbean including the cases of Stubbs in 2018 and Bain in 2020 from the Bahamas.

In December 2018, Edward represented Olivier Bancoult and the Chagos Islanders in the High Court and before that in the Supreme Court in the well-known case of Bancoult No. 4 in 2016. In February 2019, Edward successfully represented Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden Bush in their landmark constitutional motion in front of the Chief Justice to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage in the Cayman Islands. Although part of the judgment was set aside in the Court of Appeal, and the Privy Council, the Appellant’s had their right to civil partnership recognised. This has led to an amendment of the law in the Cayman Islands in the summer of 2020.

French Italian

Oxford and Cambridge (BA (Hons) Congratulatory First, MPhil Criminology, qualified in New York and American Law).