Irish Siofra O’Leary, ECHR – First woman to assume the presidency of Liberation

This is the first case since the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights in 1953. The firm announced on Monday that it had named Siofra O’Leary as its chief, effective Nov. 1. “First President of the European Court of Justice”. Siofra O’Leary will succeed Icelandic Judge Robert Spano from spring 2020.

Siofra O’Leary, 53, is a regular here: she became a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in 2015 before becoming vice-president in early 2022.

Originally from Dublin, Siofra O’Leary studied law at the University of Dublin before gaining a doctorate in European law at the prestigious European University Institute in Florence. She quickly joined the European Legal Studies Center at the University of Cambridge and then became a visiting professor at one of Europe’s largest universities. From 1995 to 2015, he was the Chief of Cabinet at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The President of the ECHR is elected by the Court’s 46 judges (one judge per Council of Europe member state) and is non-renewable for a maximum of three terms. In addition to representative functions, his task is to preside over the hearings of the Grand Chamber, which deals with the most sensitive cases of the Strasbourg-based court.