Joanna Cherry KC
King’s Counsel at Scottish Bar; former SNP MP for Edinburgh South West; former chair, Joint Committee on Human Rights

Joanna Cherry was called to the Scottish bar in 1995 and took silk in 2009. She is an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple.

From 2015-2024 she served as the member of parliament for Edinburgh South West for the SNP. From 2015-2021, she was the SNP front bench spokesperson on Justice and Home Affairs at Westminster. From 2017-2020, she served on the Exiting the EU Select Committee. From 2017-2014 she served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, latterly as chair from 2022-2024.

In 2018, she was a co-litigant in Andy Wightman’s case against the UK Government, which resulted in the EU Court of Justice ruling that Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked, thus making a People’s Vote possible. In 2019, she led the successful ‘Cherry Case’ against Boris Johnson’s unlawful prorogation of the UK Parliament.

She won the Herald newspaper award for the Best Scot at Westminster in 2019 and in 2021 she won the Holyrood magazine award for the Best Scot at Westminster.

She is a member of the Council of the Constitution Unit of University College London and of the Council of Justice, the Law Reform and Human Rights Charity. She is on the advisory board of Sex Matters, and the Lesbian Project and the Scottish Advisory Council of the Free Speech Union. She is a Trustee of the Femicide Census.

Joanna is a contributor to the Sunday Times bestseller, The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht.

Follow Joanna on X/Twitter: @joannaccherry

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